a: (» <' t f- c- 



¥9t»« 



^•••9 



r ^A****. ' • '"'IS 









%^?^ 






(-,9 &« ft* «i 






%\,M a*.ta..?^| 











Class "^ \ Z v^ 

Book 5" 

Copyright N^'_Sal 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



WELCOME 
TO OUR CITY 



JULIAN STREET 



WELCOME 
TO OUR CITY 

By JULIAN STREET 

: I 

Author of *The Need of Change," "Paris a la Carte," 
*'Ship Bored," etc. 



ILLUSTRATIONS BY 

JAMES MONTGOMERY FLAGG 

AND 

WALLACE MORGAN 



NEW YORK 
JOHN LANE COMPANY 



■ 6 



Copyright, 1912 
By p. F. collier & SON, Incorporated 

Copyright, 1910, 1911, 1912 
By TH£ RIDGWAY COMPANY 

Copyright, 1913 
By JOHN LANE COMPANY 



Printed and Bound by 
J. J. Little & Ives Co., New Vori 



©C1.A347510 



TO 

GILMAN HALL 

"And we, whom you befriended, we, 
who caught 

The kindly heart behind each casual 
thought. 

Pass on this prouder message, whis- 
pered low: 

Here is a man all men were glad to 
know !" 

— Arthur Stringer 



The Author makes his ac- 
knowledgments to the Editors of 
Everybody's Magazine for their 
permission to reprint "Lobster 
Palace Society," "No Admit- 
tance !" and "Oh, You Babylon !" 
Also to the Editors of Collier's 
Weekly, for the right to reprint 
"Welcome to Our City" 



PREFACE 

Broadway — that over-lighted part of it, 
of which I write — changes faster than the 
main street of a mining town. Its festiv- 
ities, scandals, shootings, shows, celebrities, 
and above all its favom'ite resorts, flicker 
across the surface of the year like moving 
pictures on a wide-spread sheet. What was 
written of it last year, last week, or yester- 
day, cannot be correct to-day, in detail. I 
therefore attempt nothing more, in the fol- 
lowing pages, than a picture of the Spirit 
of Broadway. 

The second paper in this book — Lobster 
Palace Society — ^was written some three 
years ago, and has to-day a sort of archseo- 
logical value. Remark the changes that 
have come, since then! Martin's, at Madi- 
son Square, is gone forever; a skyscraper 



8 PREFACE 

now stands upon its site. The Cafe de 
rOpera has become Louis Martin's, and 
evening dress is not demanded there, upon 
the ground floor, but only upstairs in the 
cabaret and baUroom. What was, in those 
ancient times, a year or two ago, the Cafe 
Madrid, has passed away, and in its place 
there stands a quick lunch room. The new 
Rector's, a hotel, though much more pre- 
tentious, has not altogether preserved its 
old time characteristics or clientele. The 
Beaux Arts, which was a cabaret before the 
cabaret was discovered on Broadway, has 
witnessed the rise of other "bohemian" es- 
tablishments. And so the picture moves. 

Even the first and last papers herein of- 
fered, though but recently written, are no 
longer strictly current, and by the time it 
has been printed, I fear my preface will have 
become obsolete. 

My last paper — Oh You Babylon! — 
presaged the dancing craze, now raging 
through the town, and menacing the caba- 



PREFACE 9 

ret. Starting at the Cafe des Beaux Arts 
and rapidly passing on to George Rector's, 
Murray's and Bustanoby's, the mania for 
restaurant dancing has spread until, to-day, 
you may see people rise from supper in some 
of the hotels, to trip the light, and exceed- 
ingly fantastic, rag-time toe. 

From Louis Martin's — ^where there is 
now a ballroom, in addition to the cabaret, 
Maurice has moved up town, to Reisen- 
weber's, which is, at this moment, perhaps, 
our principal temple of Terpischore. Three 
floors, at Reisenweber's, are given over to 
the one-step, the tango, the turkey-trot and 
their variants. People even go there to 
dance at tea-time, in the afternoon. 

The dancing craze is not without its strik- 
ing features. Though they spring from the 
vulgar sources which I trace in one of the 
following papers, and are banned in many 
of the public dance halls frequented by 
working girls and their young men, these 
modern dances are not, necessarily, inde- 



10 PREFACE 

cent. The point is that they may, or may 
not be so, at the volition of the dancers. 
Certainly their essence is a very close prox- 
imity — two persons moving, with the music, 
as one — much more as one than in the old 
time waltz or two-step. The debutante of 
five years since would have indignantly re- 
fused to dance with the young man who held 
her as he must needs hold her in the dance 
of to-day. 

That is, however, but one phase of the 
matter. 

People of position have taken to frequent- 
ing the restaurants where dancing is the at- 
traction — restaurants which are, in effect, 
merely public dance halls of a more expen- 
sive kind than those run for the working 
classes. Practically any well-dressed per- 
son who is reasonably sober and will pur- 
chase supper and champagne for two, may 
enter. This creates a social mixture such 
as was never before dreamed of in this coun- 
try — a hodge-podge of people in which re- 



PREFACE 11 

spectable young married and unmarried 
women, and even debutantes, dance, not 
only under the same roof, but in the same 
room with women of the town. 
Liberie— Egalite — Fraternite! 

J. S. 

New York, 
April, 1913. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I. Welcome to Our City .... 19 

II. Lobster Palace Society . ... 61 

III. "No Admittance" 101 

IV. "Oh, You Babylon !" 137 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Night Had Cast Her Mantle Over That 
White and Glistening Section of New 
York's Anatomy Called The Tender- 
loin Frontispiece ^ 

FACING PAGE 

It Is His Humble Way of Saying: "Wel- 
come to Our City" 20 ^' 

This Extra Attention Has Placed You Under 

Added "Obligations" to the Bellboy . . 24 
"Have You Reserved a Table, Sir?" . . . 38 
The Coatroom Boy Leans Out of His Kennel 
and Cries, Imperiously : "Have Your Coat 

and Hat Checked?" 50 '-^ 

Go Home Again — We Don't Care . . . 54 
"Ah, Good Evening, Mr. Feldman" . . . 64 t/^ 
A Little Man, Who Appears to be on a Diet, 
Is Providing for the Wants of Three 

Healthy, Hungry Women 78^ 

Of Course the Strangers "Rubber" . . . 82^ 
The Neapolitan String Quartette . . .90^ 

The Stage-Door Man 102 v/ 

Let the Current of Stage Realism Roar, Like 
a Torrent, over the Footlights, Not an 
Ounce of It Eddies into the Backwaters of 

the Wings . 104 »^ 

"Jack" Barrymore 106 "^ 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING PAGE 

Paint Is No Thicker on the Stage To-day, 
but It is Thicker in the Parquet and the 

Boxes 108 ^ 

In Arcady 110 ^ 

An Echo of "Floradora" \\%y 

Mordkin and Pavlowa 118 ""' 

There Must Be a Heroine to Sing Love Songs 124 
We Like Fat Men in Little Round Hats . .126 
They Are Valuable as Horses Are Valuable: 
For Reliability, Endurance, Good-looks and 

Stylish Action 130 y 

There Is Little That Is Funny, Much That Is 
Revolting, in the Folly of a White-haired 

Man 138. 

Three Glorious White Backs, Each Endeav- 
ouring to Outstrip the Other in the Acute- 
ness of Its "Eternal Triangle" . . .140 

A Favourite 144 

A Cabaret Head-waiter 150 

"My Rosary! . . . My Rosary!" . . . 154 
We Sup, Like Oriental Potentates, Amid the 
Minstrelsy and Dancing of the Neurotic, 
Exotic, Tommy-rotic Cabaret . . . .156 

"Hectics" 160 

She is Young — Youth Is at a Premium in 

Cabarets 162^ 

A Black Cloud and a Moonbeam, Tearing Cy- 

clonically through Space 168 

The "Apache" Dance Has the Rare Distinc- 
tion of Possessing Plot 170 

"Everybody's Overdoing It" . . . . . 172 
The Cabaret in Darkest Harlem .... 174 , 



WELCOME 
TO OUR CITY 



WELCOME TO OUR 
CITY 



WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

XTEW YORK next stop!" 
-^ ^ The Afro- American gentleman in the 
Pullman uniform falls upon you with his 
whisk and brushes from your clothes — some 
money. It is his humble way of saying: 
"Welcome to our city"; of helping you to 
get acclimatised, so that when our parasitic 
population pounces on you with all sorts of 
services you don't desire, you'll follow the 
metropolitan custom and reach for your 
change pocket instead of your gun pocket. 

Presently your train stops with a long, 
whimpering sigh, which seems to say: "I 

19 



20 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

wouldn't dump a lot of trusting strangers 
in New York like this, but I need the 
money." That is the New York point of 
view; try to get accustomed to it. We all 
know that "it's a shame to take the money," 
and taking it, protest half-apologetically 
that "we need it in our business." 

You and Dulcine alight. You pass your 
two small hand bags to the station porter. 
You carried them to the train, yourself, when 
you left home, but this isn't home, this isn't 
anybody's home; it's just New York. And 
in New York one hands one's bags to por- 
ters, just to show — well, just to Show. 

Taxi? Certainly! Close as the hotel is, 
you mustn't let people think that you are 
close, too. It would never do to arrive at 
the hotel on foot. They'd think that you 
were trying to save money. Save money, 
iadeed ! You, a free-born American ! Like 
to see anybody try to compromise yon like 
that! 

So the station porter takes your little bags 




W.A^t 



It Is His Humble Way of 
Saying : "Welcome to 
Our City" 



WELCOME TO OUR CITY 21 

to the taxi and gets his, and the taxi driver 
drives you and your little bags to the hotel 
and gets his^ and the carriage starter (in a 
uniform copied from that worn by King 
George at the Durbar) helps you and your 
little bags out and gets his, and the bellboy 
sweeps down like a wolf on the fold, carries 
your bags in, waits while you register and 
give your trunk checks to the porter, shows 
you to your room, unlocks the door, and sets 
the bags upon the table. You feel in your 
pocket for a dime, but the bellboy suspects 
you. He is afraid that it will be a dime. 
Therefore, before the coin is passed, he leaps 
to the windows and regulates the shades. 
If they are down he lets them up ; if up he 
pulls them down. Then he regards them, 
critically, to see that they balance. All this 
extra attention has placed you under added 
"obligations" to the bellboy. The dime 
won't do. Make it a quarter. 

"Thank-you-sir. Anything else, sir?" 
"Yes; some drinking water and change 



22 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

for this fiver — bring plenty of small sil- 
ver." 

"Yes, sir." 

He departs. You and Dulcine unpack 
the little bags that have been carried by so 
many hands. Presently there comes a rap 
at the door. 

"Come in!" 

It proves to be a boy with the change^ 
another boy. He holds the silver salver pa- 
tiently while you collect the smaller coins — 
all but a couple of them which you leave 
upon his tray. With five whole dollars of 
one's money in plain view one must be lib- 
eral. 

"Thank-you-sir." 

"Where's that drinking water that I or- 
dered?" 

"It'll be right up, sir.'* 

"Have my trunks come?" 

"I'll find out and let you know, sir." 

"Oh, no," you say, hurriedly correcting 
the slip. "You needn't let me know. Just 



WELCOME TO OUR CITY 23 

tell the porter to hurry them up when they 
come." 

*'Yes, sir." 

He exits. At once there comes another 
rap. 

"Come!" 

It is a boy with the ice water — still an- 
other boy. He empties it into the pitcher 
on your table. 

"Anything else, sir?" 

"Yes. I want these clothes pressed be- 
fore dinner." You indicate your dress suit 
lying on the bed. 

"Yes, sir. I'll send the valet," replies 
the boy, eagerly regarding your right 
hand. 

The hand doles out a dime. The boy 
departs. 

The porter now arrives, wheeling your 
two trunks upon his little truck. 

Grunting, horribly, he places them against 
the wall and undoes the snaps and straps. 
Had you not been in your room when he ar- 



24 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

rived, he would have dumped them, locks 
to the wall, and gone away. 

"There, sor!" he puffs, wiping from his 
brow the beads of perspiration which hotel 
porters can summon as emotional actresses 
summon tears. You can't exchange a dime 
for so much moisture. ... 

"Thank ye, sor." He pockets the quar- 
ter and exits just in time to let the valet in. 

"Have these clothes pressed before din- 
ner," you order. 

"And my dress, too," puts in Dulcine, who 
has opened her trunk and taken out a wrin- 
kled evening gown. 

The man takes up your suit. 

"I'll send the maid for the lady's dress," 
says he, departing. 

The maid arrives. 

"What time do you want the dress, 
ma'am?" she asks. 

"About five," replies Dulcine. "If I'm 
not here just leave it on the bed." 

"Yes, ma'am," says the maid, restraining 




v# 



This Extra Attention Has 
Placed You Under Added 
^'Obligations" to the Bellboy 



WELCOME TO OUR CITY 25 

her desire to laugh. "Leave it on the bed, 
indeed ! Does the lady think that we maids 
don't 'need the money'?" 

"What show shall we go to?" you ask the 
companion of your trips and tips, who has 
been peeping over your shoulder to see how 
much you hand each menial. 

"Let's look over the list in the newspa- 
per," Dulcine suggests. Then, as you move 
toward the telephone: "Oh, don't send for 
the paper, dear. That would only mean an- 
other tip. Go down and get it yourself. 

"Well, suppose it does mean another tip, 
you reply, with some irritation. "Didn't 
we come to New York to have a good time? 
You don't want me to be stingy, do you?" 

"Do as you please, dear," she replies, in 
sadly saccharine tones, as she gazes from the 
window with unseeing eyes. 

You give a grunt and hasten from the 
room. It is so much easier to run away from 
women than to apologise ; and they're so for- 
giving, anyhow, when you come back. As 



9> 



26 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

you descend in the elevator you reflect that 
there really might be something in all this 
talk of woman suffrage but for the fact 
that the dear creatures are so infernally emo- 
tional. 

By purchasing your paper at the hotel 
news stand you save a matter of eight cents. 
You might have saved another cent by step- 
ping just outside the door and buying of a 
newsboy. 

You see, the companies that operate the 
news stands pay big rentals for the privilege, 
so, of course, they "need the money." It is 
obviously quite different with the newsboys 
in the streets! 

Taking your two-cent one-cent-paper, 
you return to your Dulcine. 

"Well, dear ; here's the paper. Now what 
would you like to see?" 

After scanning the list, Dulcine remarks 
that she has heard a lot about the revival 
of "Hamlet." 

There! Isn't it just like a woman to hit 



WELCOME TO OUR CITY 27 

on something serious when you've brought 
her to New York for a good time? Isn't 
life serious enough without seeing serious 
plays? 

"Well," you say in a resigned tone, "of 
course if you want to see this Shakespeare 
stuif , why, I suppose that goes." Then you 
heave a heavy sigh. 

"Oh, no, dear!" puts in Dulcine, quickly. 
"I don't want to see it unless you do." 

"We can find something that will suit us 
both," you say. 

"Of course there's the grand opera — " 
says Dulcine. 

Now listen to that! Can you beat a 
woman? No, you can't^— much as you'd 
like to! However, you can groan, and you 
do. 

"Pick out something you'd like, dear," 
she says, handing you the paper. "I'm sure 
I'll like anything you select." 

You accept the apology and glance over 
the list. 



28 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

"How would you like to see *The Giddy- 
Widow'?" you suggest. "The ad says 
Huneful music, clever comedians, 100 beauty 
chorus — 100.' That ought to be good, I 
should think?" 

Dulcine assents so sweetly that you for- 
give her all. Is it not the part of man to be 
magnanimous? 

"All right, dear," you say cheerfully, be- 
stowing an approving pat upon her shoul- 
der blade. "If it suits you, I'm sure it 
will suit me. I'll run out and get the 
tickets." 

You do run out. You go to the box of- 
fice of the theatre. Inside the little win- 
dow is a man with the facial expression of a 
bored cotillion leader — a social favourite who 
has stepped in, from his afternoon stroll on 
Fifth Avenue, to help out a friend for a 
minute or two. 

"Two good ones for to-night?" you in- 
quire. 

"Orchestra?" he asks. Hang it! If you 



WELCOME TO OUR CITY 29 

were a New Yorker he would never have 
asked that. 

"Certainly!" 

"Nineteenth row," he replies in an icy 
tone, which seems to add: "Under the bal- 
cony, behind a post." 

"Do you think I could pick up a pair of 
good ones somewhere?" you plead. 

"Couldn't say," says the box-office man, 
raising his eyebrows slightly, and gazing 
past you at a girl who is standing in the 
lobby. "Might try the hotels." He yawns 
behind his hand and turns away. Clearly, 
the interview is ended. 

In the "good old days" you might have 
bought your seats of a greedy, greasy pirate 
just outside the theatre door. Fortunately, 
however, the speculators spoiled their own 
game. If they did not actually kill that 
greatest of all golden-egg-laying geese, the 
theatre-going New Yorker, they buttonholed 
him, jostled him, and robbed him, until even 
the cynical Mr. James Metcalfe, dramatic 



30 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

critic of Life J started a crusade against them, 
which ended in their being driven from the 
streets — almost. Even to-day they are not 
altogether gone. As you leave the theatre 
lobby, after having been informed that the 
house is "sold out," a small, foreign-born 
Jew of the lowest type, will still occasionally 
approach you and try to drag you to the 
speculator's lair for which he is a "runner." 
The neighbourhood of Broadway and Forty- 
second Street is pock-marked with the little 
shops in which these gentry ply their trade, 
asking double prices, or more, for good 
seats. It is an abuse which no other city in 
the world would tolerate; and abuse made 
possible by dishonesty and corruption on the 
one hand and indiiFerence upon the other. 
Speak a speculator fair and he will some- 
times tell you just what theatre manager he 
is in cahoots with, and just what bonus he 
must pay that manager for all of his best 
seats. 

The shrewd persons who "accommodate 



WELCOME TO OUR CITY 31 

the public" by operating hotel news stands 
conduct no such violent campaign of brig- 
andage. They get good theatre seats and sell 
them to the public at a little increase of 
25 per cent., dividing the graft with the the- 
atre managers. 

Who minds a little graft of 25 per cent.? 

No one but a "tight-wad," a "cheap 
skate," a "dead one." Terrible epithets, 
those, in our town, designating as they do a 
man with little money, or, worse still, a sav- 
ing disposition. But they have their com- 
plimentary antitheses in terms of glory, 
such as "good fellow," "spender," "live one." 
Ah ! but it is fine to be a "live one" ! To take 
your fifty-cent cigar between your teeth, 
thrust out your jaw, look the world of 
Broadway and Fifth Avenue square in its 
fishy eyes, and say: "Damn the expense! 
Nothin' too good fer me! I got the price, I 
have!" 

You return to the hotel and purchase the 
desired seats from the lovely lady back of 



32 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

the onyx news stand. She is more gracious 
than the box-office man, perhaps, but, like 
him, she has the air of an aristocrat mas- 
querading, momentarily, as a working girl. 
The fact is that New York is always mas- 
querading. Our shop girls have a blase, in- 
different manner which they acquire from 
the wealthy or pseudo-wealthy women whom 
they serve. Our young clerks imitate those 
admirable beings, the sons of millionaires, as 
reflected by the yellow journals. Our real 
millionaires' sons imitate wine agents, and 
our real millionaires imitate the aristocracy 
of Europe, while their wives and daughters 
imitate, in the matter of dress and artificial 
colour, the upper half of the Parisian half- 
world. The rest of us dress in imitation 
linen, wool, and silk, and lead imitation lives 
in imitation homes with imitation marble en- 
trance halls. 

From the news stand you go down to the 
hotel barber shop. The "brush boy" (who 
rents the privilege from the barber shop pro- 



WELCOME TO OUR CITY 33 

prietor, who rents the privilege from the ho- 
tel management) takes your hat and coat. 
The barbers who are not already occupied 
with customers leap to their chairs and re- 
gard you with eager and appraising eyes. 
You select the one who looks least like a 
Malay pirate. 

"Hair-cut?" he asks as you get into his 
chair. 

"Shave." 

He looks at you as though deciding to 
give you a throat-cut, tips you back and 
lathers you. 

"Manicure?" he presently inquires, hav- 
ing noticed that you rolled your eyes when 
the blond manicure undulated past the chair. 
You wouldn't mind being manicured if Dul- 
cine didn't always notice that your nails 
were shiny. 

"No." 

The barber now starts wondering if, after 
all, you really are sl gentleman. As he plies 
the razor he begins to tell you all about a 



34 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

"cheap skate" who came in and didn't tip 
him. There is a subtle flattery in this; an 
implication that, of course, you aren't a 
"cheap skate." You're a gentleman. 
Any one can see that with half an eye ! Now, 
as you value your face, be careful. Do not 
let the barber know that you are pleased to 
hear that some one had the nerve to leave 
him tipless. Pretend to be indignant. 

"Facial massage?" he suggests as his razor 
makes the last few touches. 

"No." 

He slams you into a sitting position. 

"Hair tonic?" 

"No." 

The barber has a dismal conviction that 
his tip will be ten cents. A ten-cent tip is 
barely satisfactory. Fifteen is better. A 
quarter and you become a gentleman. The 
brush boy helps you into yom' coat and 
brushes you while you pay the check. You 
might give him a nickel if you were a "tight- 
wad," but a dime is comme il faut. 



WELCOME TO OUR CITY 35 

Leaving the barber shop you go into the 
wash room. Here an Italian or a Greek, 
whose hands are covered with shoeblacking, 
has placer-mining rights. As you reach out 
to turn on the water he pushes you out of 
the way and does it for you. Having filled 
the bowl, he tests its temperature with a 
hand which would defile an ocean. Above 
the basin is a shelf intended to hold 
towels. But no towels are there. No, 
indeed! The boy has the towels securely 
put away in a private safe-deposit vault, in 
the corner, where you cannot reach one for 
yourself. 

When you wish to dry your hands he gets 
one out, unfolds it and lays it in your grasp. 
As you use it, he sets to brushing you, stand- 
ing close and watching you, like some beast 
of prey, prepared to spring the instant that 
you try to run. 

You have just been brushed in the barber 
shop. You don't want to be brushed again. 
You hate to be brushed. Never mind. 



36 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

Give up. For in New York you are at the 
mercy of the Greeks, Italians, Russians, 
Irish, French, and Swiss, and there is no 
American Consul to appeal to. 

You step into a rapid-fire elevator and 
are shot silently to the upper regions. Dul- 
cine awaits you. It is time to dress. You 
ring for the valet and the maid, obtain from 
them your freshly ironed clothing, tip them, 
and adorn yourself for dinner and the thea- 
tre. Then, together, you descend to the 
ground floor. 

The principal restaurant of the hotel is 
called the Palm Room — in honour, doubt- 
less, of a certain marvellous dexterity pos- 
sessed by the head waiter. As you and 
Dulcine approach the portals you see a 
crowd of people struggling for the privilege 
of getting in and spending money. The 
more they struggle the more they are held 
back by a cordon of head waiters, and the 
more they are held back the more eager 



WELCOME TO OUR CITY 37 

they become to enter and have their golden 
fleeces painlessly removed. 

The quest of the Palm Room is like some 
quest in Greek mythology. There are all 
sorts of obstacles to be overcome. First 
among them are the Hat Snatchers, who 
maintain their gauntlet just outside the 
door — swarthy, spidery lads, lurking in the 
shadows of the rows of overcoats, whence 
they pounce out to snatch your headgear 
and your outer garments. Hat Snatching 
has come, in the last dozen years or so, to 
be a business by itself. It was started, I be- 
lieve, when Sherry's was started, since which 
time it has steadily progressed. Impudent, 
ignorant Greek or Russian boys are usually 
employed to do the actual snatching, at 
wages of $25 to $30 per month, plus uni- 
forms in which there are no pockets. And 
there is a "captain," at $60 per month, to 
see that they don't hide their tips in their 
shoes. 



38 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

It IS reported that, in spite of these pre- 
cautions, the boys often manage to make oif 
with some of their imdrone's graft, and I 
shall not be surprised if the uniforms are ulti- 
mately abandoned in favour of utter naked- 
ness, according to the latest Kaffir diamond- 
mining mode. 

Like the men-at-arms who served the rob- 
ber barons of old, these boys do the actual 
dirty work of plundering, but don't partici- 
pate in the ill-gotten gains, save perhaps the 
"captain," who sometimes gets a little share. 

It is the "man higher up" — the padrone. 
Head Hat Snatcher, or Hat Bandersnatch 
— who rents the right to work the checking 
graft and takes the profits. According to 
the New York Times, the annual rentals 
paid to some of the best known hotels and 
restaurants are as follows : 

Hotel Knickerbocker and Louis JNIartin's, 
$9,000 each; Churchill's, $6,000; Rector's, 
the Cafe Madrid, and the Cafe des Beaux 
Arts, $3,000 each; Plaza Hotel, $2,000. 



> 

O 

w 

o 



> 

r 




WELCOME TO OUR CITY 39 

Figures given by the New York World 
are considerably larger (it's the nature of the 
beast) and include a droll computation 
whereby a man's hat, originally costing $5, 
costs, in the end, as much as that of his wife, 
whose headgear, though infinitely more ex- 
pensive in the first place, is not snatched 
from her and checked. 

Having passed the hat snatchers, you and 
Dulcine begin to jostle with the silk- 
stocking bread line at the Palm Room 
portal. 

There is a cord across the doorway to 
keep the eager rich from getting in too 
easily. And just inside the cord there is a 
traffic squad of head waiters, who are traf- 
ficking in tables. All the tables bear cards 
marked "Reserved." This merely means 
that they're reserved for "live ones." 

Elbowing your way to the front you 
catch the attention of a head waiter and say : 
"Two." 



40 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

He regards you and Dulcine with a cold, 
appraising eye. 

"Have you reserved a table, sir?" 

Shamefacedly, you admit that you have 
not. 

He looks doubtful, but says that he will 
see what he can do. 

Gentle reader, gentle visitor from out of 
town, you are now face to face with the Psy- 
chological Moment of which you have so 
often read. Place a bill promptly but in- 
conspicuously in the head waiter's palm and 
you will get into the Palm Room. 

*' Thank you, sir," you hear him say in 
low, respectful tones, as he unhooks the 
cord. You are a *'live one"! The human 
barrier (if a barrier of waiters may be called 
human) gives way before you. The orches- 
tra seems to play louder. You enter and 
are led, in triumph, to a table gleaming with 
silver, china, glass, and snowy napery. The 
strategic position of the table depends upon 
the denomination of the bill which you have 



WELCOME TO OUR CITY 41 

given the head waiter. No, he hasn't looked 
at it yet; he can tell by the feeling of it as 
it touches his highly sensitised palm. 
^ The musicians, in their red coats, are 
swaying passionately with their instruments, 
playing something which sounds Mke inci- 
dental music to the works of Elinor Glyn. 
Jewelled and scented women— who, though 
they may spend all their money upon clothes, 
may not be said to spend it all upon their 
backs — trail in languishingly, undulatingly, 
with their gold cigarette cases, and gold mesh 
bags, and gold mesh escorts. The atmos- 
phere is of jewels, white shoulders, cham- 
pagne, thousand-dollar bills, and monosyl- 
lables. Ah, this is life! f 

As the head waiter places a menu in your 
hand, you notite with sudden horror that 
your cuff is cracked in the usual place. He 
notices it, too. 

"Cocktails, sir?" 

"Have a cocktail, dear?" you ask Dul- 
cine. 



42 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

"Why, Henry! You know I never — ^" 

"One Bronx," you order, hurriedly. 

"Yes, sir. Caviar?" 

"Yes." 

He shows you two kinds of caviar upon 
the menu. You think of your cracked cuff 
and order the expensive kind. 

"Oysters?" 

"Let's not have a great big dinner," says 
Dulcine. 

"But surely you want oysters, dear?" 

"No," she answers. "I just want — " 

"Well," you say to the head waiter, "bring 
oysters for two, anyway." And to Dul- 
cine: "You'll want them after you see 
them." 

The dear creature subsides meekly 
enough, only listening, with a horrified ex- 
pression on her face, while you run down 
through the courses and wind up with a bot- 
tle of champagne. She had feared that you 
would do it; she remembers that you did it 
in Washington when you were there on your 



WELCOME TO OUR CITY 43 

wedding trip, nine years ago. You're al- 
ways ordering champagne! 

"You know I don't like champagne," she 
reproaches, when the man has gone. 

**Yes," you reply. "I know. But it's 
expected of you here." 

Dulcine sighs and looks down at her plate. 

"What's the matter, dear?" 

"Oh, nothing." 

"Well," you declare with some asperity, 
"I'm sure / can't imagine what it is. I'm 
doing everything I can do to make you 
happy!" 

"Oh, I am, dear," she reassures you. 
Then after the briefest pause : "How much 
did you give the head waiter?" 

Yet you thought she hadn't noticed the 
transaction ! 

"Oh, what does it matter?" you exclaim. 
"Do forget money for a few minutes! 
Didn't we come to New York to enjoy 
life?" 

She says she'll try. But through the re- 



44 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

mainder of your meal she only picks at 
things, as though she thought the hotel 
wouldn't charge for what she left upon her 
plate. In New York a small appetite looks 
so cheap. Cheap! Ugh! How one shud- 
ders at the word! 

Disgruntled, despite your elaborate re- 
past, you call for the check. The waiter 
brings it on a silver salver. Observing that 
Dulcine's eyes are straining across the table 
at the total, you cover the figures, hurriedly, 
with a twenty-dollar bill. It is remarkable 
to think how much there is in our town 
that a twenty-dollar bill won't cover. When 
the change comes, you snatch it, without 
counting — all but the dollar which you leave 
for the waiter, intentionally, and the two 
quarters which you leave, unintentionally, 
because they are concealed beneath the little 
cardboard slip torn from the bottom of the 
check, for this purpose. 

The waiter takes your tip (plus fifty 
cents) in the spirit in which it is offered. 



WELCOME TO OUR CITY 45 

That is to say, there is complete ill will on 
your side and on his. You give him the 
dollar because you are one of custom's cow- 
ards; he takes it as though it belonged to 
him ; as though he was collecting an old debt, 
and goes away grumpily, without a word of 
thanks. 

Rising, you move with your wife and your 
cracked cuff to the door of the Palm Room. 
No one tries to keep you from getting out. 
The head waiter bows. The hat snatchers 
leap forward, wait nervously while you 
search your pockets for the checks, and 
finally bundle you into your wraps, take their 
toll, and, having gotten it, drop you so 
abruptly that you almost feel hurt. 

You move toward a revolving door. 
There is something in its revolutions which 
recalls a wringers-something to squeeze the 
last cent out of the clothing which passes 
through it. Out you go, and taking Dul- 
cine by the arm, propel her toward a ta:^i- 
cab. 



46 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

"Couldn't we walk to the theatre?" she 
asks. "I haven't had a bit of exercise to- 
day." 

"Sh-h, dear!" you admonish, thrusting her 
into a roaring, rickety machine. "Don't 
mention exercise here. It's vulgar." 

"Where to, sir?" demands the carriage 
starter, clinging grimly to the open door. 

"Brainfag Theatre," you reply, with a 
dime. 

He slams the door. With a huck which 
nearly knocks your hat off, the ride begins. 
A taxi ride, in New York, is sure to be in- 
teresting. It gives one thoughts which must 
be similar to those of a man en route over 
Niagara Falls in a barrel — thoughts on the 
instability of human devices, the brevity of 
human life, and the benefits of accident in- 
surance. Your taxi twists in and out amid 
the traffic, shoots up behind other vehicles, 
hesitates, as though in doubt whether to go 
over, under, or through, and finally jerks to 
a sliding stop within a foot of them. In a 



WELCOME TO OUR CITY 47 

moment it is off again, charging down upon 
wild-eyed pedestrians, winding perilously 
among a maze of elevated railroad pillars, 
swinging violently around corners, in ac- 
cordance with the traffic regulations, and 
finally bringing up in a line of vehicles, mov- 
ing by jerks toward the glittering entrance 
of the Brainfag Theatre. 

Another carriage starter throws open the 
door of your machine and thrusts into your 
hand, as you hasten to alight, a pasteboard 
carriage check, punched with holes. Lose 
it; your taxi driver won't come back. 
Holding up the line, amid the impre- 
cations of policemen and chauffeurs, you 
pay the man and tip him. And whatever 
you pay him, you may be sure it is too much. 
Perhaps his taximeter is overindustrious, 
but whether that be true or not the New 
York taxicab rates are too high and every- 
body knows it. One reason for this is the 
set of antiquated laws governing hired ve- 
hicles; another reason is that (according to 



48 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

a report made by Raymond B. Fosdick, for- 
mer Commissioner of Accounts) "certain 
cab companies make a practice of paying 
fees to various restaurants, hotels, and clubs 
for the privilege of using the premises adja- 
cent thereto as special hack stands." In 
other words, the cab companies practically 
rent from the hotel or restaurant manage- 
ment, portions of the city streets, which do 
not belong to that management, but to the 
city. This graft, Mr. Fosdick reports, runs 
into a sum amounting to more than $360,- 
000 per year. The Waldorf receives 
$30,000 annually for cab privileges; the 
Knickerbocker, $20,000; the Hotel Astor, 
$10,000; the Imperial, Churchill's, and Sher- 
ry's, $6,000 each, and so on down the list. 
It is another of the beneficent hotel and res- 
taurant man's devices for "accommodating 
the pubhc." 

The lobby of the Brainfag Theatre con- 
tains a quantity of large, hand-painted la- 
dies, their heads swathed in gold-embroidered 



WELCOME TO OUR CITY 49 

surgical bandages, their bodies in loose cloaks 
of fur-trimmed Pullman palace car uphol- 
stery. Scents marvellously variegated, and 
escorts monotonously alike, hover about 
^■hem. All the escorts wear silk hats and 
ar-hned overcoats, inconvenience being the 
prevailing mode in the costumes of both men 
and women. The women's skirts are so 
tight that they can barely walk in them, the 
men's fur coats bulky, and their silk hats 
easily marred and broken. A silk hat in a 
theatre has about as much chance as a child 
in a dark tenement. Yet it is in these places 
that one finds them. The poor keep on hav- 
ing more children and the rich more silk 
hats. To show a cool disregard for the 
welfare of your silk hat — that is to be 
fashionable. Your very attitude seems to 
say: "Pouf ! What does it matter? My 
man, Meadows, can jolly well iron it out; 
or if he can't, he can jolly well go to 
the hatter's and get me a new one. Eh, 
what?" 



50 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

A blare of light and music greets you as 
you pass into the theatre. The coat-room 
hoy, who isn't allowed to come out and 
openly attack you, leans on his stomach far 
out of his kennel, and cries imperiously: 
''Have your coat and hat checked!" His 
manner seems to indicate that he has the law 
behind him. 

"The Giddy Widow" is a musical comedy, 
which deals with the comic gaucheries of 
Hoggenspiel, a German dialect comedian. 
(Isn't that name a perfect scream?) Hog- 
genspiel (I haff to laiF every time I say it!) 
comes from Kalamazoo. Kalamazoo is al- 
ways good for a laugh on Broadway. He 
is in the pickle business. The pickle busi- 
ness is also very comic. Sometimes I think 
that it gets funnier each year. An uncle of 
Hoggenspiel's, who is in the sausage busi- 
ness (also a perfect scream!) leaves him 
three million dollars (this is the plot, so take 
notice!) provided the nephew finds and mar- 
ries a mysterious ballet dancer, known as the 




The Coatroom Boy Leans 
Out of His Kennel and 
Cries, Imperiously: 
''Have Your Coat and 
Hat Checked" 



WELCOME TO OUR CITY 51 

Giddy Widow. But (proviso No. 2) they 
must live in Kalamazoo. (Here a comic 
song: *'For I came from Kalamazoo," by 
Hoggenspiel and sixteen Spanish girls.) 
Naturally, in the second act they all go to 
Paris — I forget whether it is Maxim's or the 
Moulin Rouge — and of course the Giddy 
Widow wants the three million, but hates 
Kalamazoo. ( Song : "The Wildflower and 
the Bee.") They argue, and Hoggenspiel 
chews up carrots and blows them out at her 
while talking. It's a scream! Then there's 
a song about champagne, with a dark stage, 
and chorus girls making Hoggenspiel think 
he's dreaming. Next, the young French 
officer comes in and wants to fight a duel 
with Hoggenspiel (it's over the Giddy 
Widow, of course) and Hoggenspiel is 
scared to death. That part is awfully funny. 
Then Hoggenspiel dresses in a frock coat 
and flat-brimmed silk hat, and pretends that 
he's a marquis who is famous as a duellist, 
and the French officer, hearing that this 



52 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

marquis has killed a lot of men, is afraid to 
fight. 

Well, from there they all go to the yacht. 
Then the head waiter finds out that the 
Giddy Widow is really his wife, and discloses 
the fact that he isn't a waiter at all, but is 
really a rich Roumanian, in disguise. After 
that they discover that, according to the 
Roumanian law, they are divorced. So the 
husband is free to marry the countess, after 
all. (I forgot to tell you about her — tall, 
good-looking girl with black hair and a 
spangled dress.) Then they have that 
funny song about "Divorce, divorce, you'll 
all have one, of course!" after which the 
masquerading head waiter discovers that the 
little girl with the blond hair, who has been 
singing off key, in a piping voice, is really 
his daughter. So he gives her permission to 
marry the young American naval officer, 
and that part of it is fixed up. Still the 
Giddy Widow won't marry Hoggenspiel. 
At last, though, he persuades her to agree 



WELCOME TO OUR CITY 53 

to it, providing he becomes mayor of Kala- 
mazoo. Then he wires over and spends a 
million on votes, and turns the pickle fac- 
tory into a public dance hall, so of course 
he is elected. (Finale: ''We're ofF, off, 
off!") Curtain. 

It's a bully show. Don't miss it. The 
only man I saw who wasn't laughing his 
head off was an Englishman, but English- 
men haven't any sense of humour. It takes 
the Americans to appreciate a joke. We're 
a race of humourists. If you don't believe 
it, ask us. 

The creatures of the night are wandering 
abroad as you leave the theatre. Electric- 
lighted advertising signs flash and change 
like an aurora borealis in the firmament 
above. The streets roar and clang with 
traffic; the crowded sidewalks shrill with 
scraps of shouted conversation. Dulcine 
puts her fingers to her ears and says that she 
is tired. You bundle her into a taxi and 



54 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

drive to a celebrated Broadway restaurant, 
where you pass once more, like grist, 
through the mills of the hat snatchers and 
head waiters: tipping to get in and order 
more than either of you want; tipping to 
get out again. 

You taxi back to the hotel. Tip. You 
go up to your room and order ice water. 
Tip. You unhook Dulcine. Tip? No. 
That is real work — no tip for that. 

Presently you tiptoe over, put out the 
light and raise the window. From the 
streets, far below, a million sounds waft up 
to you, muffled by the distance and united 
into one great dissonance. It is the orches- 
tra of the city, playing its strange lullaby, 
which puts the New Yorker to sleep but 
keeps the stranger awake. Creeping into 
bed, you lie and listen. You fancy hands, 
all eager to "accommodate," are thrust out 
toward you, in the darkness, palms up. 
Eerie voices seem to shrill above the boom- 




Go Home Again— 
We Don't Care 



WELCOME TO OUR CITY 55 

ing of the streets. Listen ! What is it that 
they sing? 

". o . It's a shame to take the money. 
But we need it in our business, . . ." 

It is the anthem of New York. 

^ ^ ^ ^ Vf: 

You and Dulcine may go home again, or 
you may stay here in New York — we don't 
care which you do. But suppose you stay; 
what then? If you have children you will 
take them to live in a family hotel where 
they can enjoy the privilege of playing with 
the elevator boys and the waiters, thus be- 
coming, in due time, "cute kids." 

If you haven't children you'll decide to 
have a pomeranian and a limousine instead. 

If you've made a lot of money, you will 
find, in a short time, that you have also 
made a lot of friends — very fashionable- 
looking people, too. If the women friends 
think your wife has "possibilities," they will 



56 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

take her in hand and make the most of her, 
teaching her about bridge, cigarettes, and 
cocktails; showing her where to get those 
corsets which reduce hips, and those cos- 
tumes which reduce both bank account and 
modesty. It is the present mode to reduce 
everything but prices. 

Dulcine will be a surprise to you. Her 
cheeks and lips will grow redder, she will 
have a great deal of new hair, a gold mesh 
bag for her bridge winnings, and an appal- 
ling taste for spending money. She won't 
be like the old Dulcine at all. 

As for you, you should enter one of the 
many branches of the business of accommo- 
dating the public. Whatever you may do, 
see that you do not really earn your money. 
People who actually earn it don't accumu- 
late much money in New York. Give up 
all idea of ever having an identity, of ever 
being more than one of several million dis- 
tributing agencies for coin. Submit, un- 
complainingly, to impositions and insolence. 



WELCOME TO OUR CITY 57 

Conceal, as best you can, your hatred of the 
countless people who come bumping into 
you in the congestion of the city's life; for 
they try to conceal their hatred from you. 
Remember that New York is the national 
parlour for the painless extraction of ideals ; 
get a new set made of gold. And when you 
see a newspaper cartoon that shows a little 
man, hopeless and expressionless, with his 
hat beaten down over his eyes, have a good 
laugh, for that little man is you. Then 
some day, if you follow these directions, 
and if you started with youth and a strong 
stomach, people will speak of you as being 
a "typical New Yorker." But by that time 
you'll be too spineless and too gouty to 
knock anybody down for saying it. 

Having been called "a typical New 
Yorker," you'll be ready for the doctor. 
He will come and take your pulse and shake 
his head; and take your purse and go away. 
He "needs it in his business" just like every- 
body else. Then they'll send for Dulcine, 



58 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

breaking up her bridge game (unless she's 
out in Reno) . Dulcine will ask if you have 
anything to say, and you will whisper, 
hoarsely: "Don't forget to tip the under- 
taker!" 

Then pretty soon he'll come, in his black 
coat, and valet you into yours, and give you 
your last brushing. After that they'll take 
you driving (out to a little country place 
they've purchased for you), and it is very 
likely that the driver will feel worse than 
anybody else, and that, foreseeing that he 
isn't going to get a tip, he'll mutter: 
"Dead oner 



LOBSTER 

PALACE 

SOCIETY 



II 

LOBSTER PALACE SOCIETY 

NIGHT had cast her mantle over 
Broadway; not the mantle of darkness 
and peace, but the gaudy, spangled opera 
cloak with which she covers that white and 
glistening section of New York's anatomy 
called the Tenderloin. 

Theatres, hotels, and restaurants were all 
alight; hundreds of vari-coloured incan- 
descent advertising signs were whirUng, 
sparkling, pouring forth illumined words 
concerning stage stars, petticoats, plays, 
whiskies, corsets, and eating places; street 
cars were banging over switches ; automobile 
engines whirring, horns honking, people 
howling conversations at each other; the air 
was heavy with the exotic odours of exhaust 
gases from motors; life and pleasure were 

61 



62 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

jostling on the sidewalks. For we were at 
the very centre of the city's gay night life. 

On the steps of the Hotel Astor my 
friend, the Tenderloin Archaeologist, halted 
me, while he cast a ruminative, fishy eye over 
the riotous triangle of asphalt which marks 
the crossing of Broadway and Seventh Ave- 
nue. 

"The historical name of it," he said, "is 
Longacre Square. George Washington 
stopped at the old Long Acre farmhouse 
which used to stand here. But what does 
the Tenderloin care for history? It remem- 
bers nothing but the last theatrical divorce, 
ten-thousand-dollar dinner, or New Year's 
Eve headache. When that newspaper sky- 
scraper was built, they changed the name to 
Times Square. That's the official name. 
But the only official things that count in this 
part of town are traffic policemen and head 
waiters. So the Tenderloin has rechristened 
its capital again: now it is "Eating-house 
Square." 



LOBSTER PALACE SOCIETY 63 

The revolving glass doors of the hotel 
were spinning like millwheels under the 
pressure of a steady stream of people, flow- 
ing in from the twenty theatres of the neigh- 
bourhood. We followed them down the 
corridor toward the large supper room, 
whence came mellow light and gay music. 
About the wide doorway of this room stood 
a knot of twenty or thirty men and women, 
all in evening dress and eager to get in — a 
comic sort of bread-line, held back by a 
plush rope and a young head waiter, who, 
St. Peter-like, examined the candidates with 
a critical eye and looked them up in a tome 
containing the names of those who had re- 
served tables in advance. The head wait- 
er's book is the Social Register of the Ten- 
derloin. 

Watching the sifting process, we saw a 
couple elbow their way through the crowd. 
The man's eye caught that of the head 
waiter. He raised two fingers. 

The head waiter bowed, with: "Ah, 



64 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

good evening, Mr. Feldman." He did not 
look up Mr. Feldman in his book, but said 
to an assistant: "Table twenty-six for Mr. 
Feldman," and hastily unhooked the rope. 

Mr. Feldman passed in. Behind him 
trailed a lady wearing staccato scents and 
an alarmingly diminuendo dress. Instinc- 
tively you knew she had a little, yipping, 
woolly dog in a flat somewhere not very far 
away; also plenty of siphons on the ice, and 
books which were not by JNIeredith or Henry 
James. 

Clearly, in ]Mr. Feldman we had seen a 
man who really knew the ropes. He was 
not made of common clay but, to all appear- 
ances, of pate de foie gras and truffles. He 
never had to reserve tables in advance. No 
matter what a crush there was, he always 
sailed majestically in and found a place. If 
the regular tables were occupied, a special 
one was carried in and laid for him. 

The "Mr. Feldman" kind of man dis- 
tributes largesse with a plump and lavish 



li^bSr'K. 




W 

r 
o 

> 

5^ 



I 




LOBSTER PALACE SOCIETY 65 

hand. He has cocktails named for him, 
drinks vintage champagnes, sends for the 
head waiter, calls him "Max" or "Louis," 
dresses him down, and gives him a twenty- 
dollar bill. "Mr. Feldman" does not pay 
spot cash in the Lobster Palaces. He 
merely tips his waiter with a bill and signs 
his name across the check. Check-signing 
is one of the most impressive rites of the 
Tenderloin. It signifies not only that 
"Mr. Feldman" runs an account and settles 
by the month, but that he always has aisle 
seats, down in front, for the first night of 
each new "girl show," and can play on credit 
in the gambling "clubs." So it is natural 
that, as "Mr. Feldman," with a superbly 
unconscious air, signs and rises from the ta- 
ble, people gaze at him in awe, and whisper: 
"Who is that?" 

"Mr. Feldman" is sometimes young, but 
usually he is middle-aged and just a little 
bald. His complexion is of either a pasty 
cream colour, or an apoplectic purple, shad- 



66 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

ing oif to a lighter tone about the promi- 
nently upholstered neck. There are deep 
wrinkles beside the nose, fleshy pouches be- 
neath the eyes, diamonds on the fingers, 
and very fancy buttons on the evening waist- 
coat. The whole is mounted upon creaky 
legs. 

While "Mr. Feldman" lives, he lives very 
high, and when he comes to die, he does it so 
quickly that he actually interrupts himself 
in the midst of ordering another bottle. 
His colour changes. If he was purple, he 
turns mauve; if cream-coloured, a lovely 
shade of pale green. An attentive waiter 
catches him as he starts to flop over on the 
wine coolers. He has stopped ordering, so 
his friends know he must be dead. 

Obituaries in the next day's papers refer 
to him as a "prominent clubman" or a "well- 
known man-about-town," and, like as not, 
mention a hitherto (and hereafter) un- 
heard-of wife, who lives in New Rochelle or 
Flushing. Several friends go out there to 



LOBSTER PALACE SOCIETY 67 

the funeral, but not one single head waiter. 
The friends think it would be nice to sing 
"For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" with the 
service. On the way back to New York 
they "roast" the widow for not providing 
drinks. Then, with a pleasant sense of duty 
done, they return to the Lobster Palaces. 
By night the Tenderloin has forgotten 
"Mr. Feldman" as completely as it has for- 
gotten the old Long Acre farm. If people 
should trouble to investigate the matter fur- 
ther — which no one ever does — they might 
find that "Mr. Feldman" left, besides the 
trailing lady, the widow, and the waistcoat 
buttons, six children and a mortgage. 

But hold on! This is disagreeable, and 
Lobster Palace life is acknowledged to be 
gay. Let us dry our tears, go to the Cafe 
de rOpera,* and listen to the haute monde 
of the Tenderloin eat soup. 

The Cafe de I'Opera is, as I write, the 
newest, the gold-and-bluest restaurant in 

* The Cafe de I'Opera is now known as Louis Martin's. 



68 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

Babylon, though they are building others 
faster than type can possibly be set. 
Broadway pronounces the name of the re- 
sort with the accent of Paris, Texas, rather 
than Paris, France. Though it gets the 
"caf-fay" part pretty well, it rather goes to 
pieces on "de loppra." For Broadway eats 
French better than it speaks it. 

A uniformed attendant assists us to alight 
from our taxicab^or do we own a limou- 
sine? As he helps us out, he tells us that 
the remodelling of the building we are enter- 
ing cost two million dollars. We are pre- 
pared to be impressed. And, indeed, there 
are impressive things about this restaurant. 
One of them, which has particularly startled 
the Tenderloin, is the rule that persons not in 
evening dress are barred from the ground 
floor. This rule is strictly enforced — -"let 
the chips fall where they may." It opens 
interesting fields for speculation. It's easy 
enough to say when a gentleman is in even- 
ing dress, for you have only to look at a 



LOBSTER PALACE SOCIETY 69 

waiter and make sure that the one is habited 
like the other. But with women it is dif- 
ferent. Some gowns are on the borderland. 
One fancies that the head waiters at the 
Cafe de TOpera may be confronted, now 
and then, with perplexing problems, calling 
for close decisions. Is she, or is she not, in 
evening dress? Have her wait until the 
manager can settle it. 

Personally, I should hate to be the man- 
ager. Suppose, for instance, stern duty 
compels him to decide that a lady who 
thinks she is in evening dress, is not because 
her gown is not cut low enough. Shouldn't 
you hate to be the one to break it to her? 

Obviously, the ground floor of the Cafe de 
rOpera is the place.* Those who aren't in 
evening dress, as well as many who are, are 
sent upstairs. Some of them seem to feel a 
little bit resentful. I heard scathing com- 
ments on the downstairs diners, and should 
like to print the plaint of one particularly 

* O tempora, O mores ! And now it is the other way about. 



70 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

pretty woman whom I overheard, but won't, 
for fear you would think she was not a per- 
fect lady. 

" I would of worn my Tuxedo suit," I 
heard a crestfallen-looking young man say 
to his tailor-made young lady, as they were 
transported to the upper realms, "only I 
had to lend it to a fellow that was getting 
married." 

It's enough to make any one feel crest- 
fallen to come up against a rope and a head 
waiter, and be told one can't get in. Get- 
ting the rope at a Lobster Palace is much 
like "getting the hook" on amateur night at 
a music hall. It makes a person feel unut- 
terably cheap, and "cheap" is a word that 
gives Lobster Palace Society the horrors. 
Spend money! That is the cry. Marry it, 
steal it, raise checks, mark cards, rob tills, 
or kill your poor old grandmother fdr the 
insurance ; but get the money and, when you 
get it, SPEND! 

People are sheep; let a movement start 



LOBSTER PALACE SOCIETY 71 

and the whole flock will follow, pellmell. 
Sheep and the Lobster Palace Set are easily 
herded. The head waiter at an hotel, the 
restaurant of which is crowded every night, 
told a friend of mine that but few people 
came there when they opened. And how do 
you suppose he got them to coming? Sim- 
ply by humming and hawing when some one 
telephoned for a table reservation; by 
mumbling vaguely the names of fashionable 
people, and saying, "I'm not sure you can 
have a table for to-night, but if you'll call 
up later, I will see." The minute that per- 
son thought he might not be able to get in, 
he was obsessed with a mad desire to do so. 
He went up to see about it, and when, at 
last, he was promised a table, a great elation 
filled his bosom. Such tactics started peo- 
ple coming, and, once started, the movement 
soon became an avalanche. 

What a horrid, clear vision head waiters 
must have of human nature! How they 
must laugh together over the antics of the 



72 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

people whom they serve! How excrucia- 
tingly funny they must find it to be tipped 
by men not nearly so well off financially — 
or even mentally and morally — as are they 
themselves ! 

There are many head waiters in these 
popular resorts who are comfortably off, and 
several who are rich. Head waiters' ac- 
counts are highly valued by stockbrokers. 
In speculation they often do very well, for, 
of all the tips they get, market tips from 
wealthy patrons are apt to be the best. 
And the head waiters are not the only ones 
who prosper. 

"I get it all back," said a stockbroker 
acquaintance of mine, as he gave a quarter 
to a coat-room boy at the old Rector's. 
"The man who rents this privilege is a good 
customer of mine." 

So we tip them all^ — though we should 
like to kick them. And we go away with 
the feeling that is expressed by the verse 
from Lamentations: "Servants have ruled 



LOBSTER PALACE SOCIETY 73 

over us: there is none that doth deliver us 
out of their hand." 

You may fancy from my plaintive cries 
that we got the rope at the Cafe de FOpera? 
Not so! We arrived early, opened our 
overcoats, showed the white bosoms of our 
shirts to the head waiter (much as detectives 
show their badges), engaged a table, and 
hurried out again. 

People from the theatres were pouring 
into all the neighbouring cafes. Crossing 
the street, we entered the Hotel Knicker- 
bocker. At the entrance to the Grill Room, 
downstairs, the bread-line had already 
formed, outside the rope. It looked much 
like the other Tenderloin bread-lines: all 
shimmer, glitter, sparkle. 

Ascending, we passed through the 
Knickerbocker bar, a central meeting-place 
for the men of Lobster Palace Life, who 
refer to it affectionately as the ''Forty- Sec- 
ond Street Country Club." Over the bar 
is placed Maxfield Parrish's rich painting, 



74 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

"Old King Cole" — one of the few examples, 
in the Tenderloin, of art that may be de- 
scribed as chaste. Many Tenderloin res- 
taurateurs and hotel keepers are "art 
patrons." Their taste in paintings is ex- 
traordinarily uniform — ladies out of uniform 
being the prevailing subjects. It is, there- 
fore, quite surprising to come on "Old King 
Cole," where one might reasonably expect 
to find his harem. 

Now that we have had our cocktail, it's 
time to go back to the Cafe de I'Opera again ; 
time to sit down, order supper, and take a 
look about. 

"The first spiritual want of a barbarous 
man is decoration," said Carlyle, "as indeed 
we still see among the barbarous classes in 
civilised countries." 

If this be true, the Cafe de I'Opera should 
amply satisfy the spiritual wants of the Ten- 
derloin, for it seems to have reached the ulti- 
mate in passionate surroundings for food 
and drink. But has it? 



LOBSTER PALACE SOCIETY 75 

Some years ago when I first went to Mur- 
ray's Restaurant in Forty-second Street, I 
thought that it had reached the ultimate. 
How Art does progress! To-day I think 
that Murray's shows architectural restraint. 
The fa9ade looks like a refinement of a fine 
old papier mache palazzo in the chaste and 
classic style of Luna Park. Inside, it iS; 
quasi-Pompeian, with plashing fountains; 
mirrors, pergolas, and landscapes set into 
the walls so cleverly that a man who once 
sat there from seven P. m. until two a. m. is 
reported to have imagined himself travelling 
abroad. They even have lights under the 
tables, at Murray's, so that a pink glow 
comes up through the cloth. Quite thrill-' 
ing! It makes a good place to show your 
friends who come from afar and wish to 
gaze about, for dining there is like dining on 
a stage set for the second act of a musical 
comedy. You half expect a chorus of wait- 
ers to come dancing in with property lob- 
sters glued to property plates. 



76 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

If dining at Murray's suggests musical 
comedy, supping at the Cafe de I'Opera 
suggests a big spectacular effect at the opera 
— the palace of some very festive Old Tes- 
tament king, like Nebuchadnezzar, or Og, 
the King of Bashan. The colour scheme is 
blue and gold, with black marble columns 
surmounted by golden capitals representing 
bulls' heads — or are they calves of gold? 
There is a black marble stairway that is 
quite the most magnificently heathen-look- 
ing thing in town. At the bottom of it 
stands a gigantic winged lion, with a man's 
head, in bas relief. The broad stair-land- 
ing, visible from the main dining-room, 
would be a fine place for a priest to make 
burnt offerings to barbaric gods, while ves- 
tals tripped about, a la Isidora Duncan and 
Maud Allan. 

On the large expanse of wall back of this 
stair-landing the latest and most startling 
addition to New York's Lobster Palace Art 
Collection is displayed, in the form of an 



LOBSTER PALACE SOCIETY 77 

immense painting, by Rochegrosse, of the 
Fall of Babylon. This picture was ex- 
hibited in the Paris Salon — an institution 
which, by the way, could hardly have existed 
in the past few years, had not Babylon 
fallen, or Leda had her adventure with the 
swan, or the Elders seen Susanna, or pretty 
ladies had the admirable habit of bathing. 
So many paintings of the fall of Babylon 
are each year submitted to the jury at the 
Salon that only those which depict that 
wicked city as falling with a particularly 
vicious crash of flesh tints are accepted. 
Monsieur Rochegrosse certainly succeeded. 
Seldom, indeed, has such a fall been taken 
out of Babylon! 

To place such a picture in a New York 
Lobster Palace would be daring if Lobster 
Palace Society had brains or used them. 
But why have brains? Aren't sweetbreads 
just as good? So the elite of Lobsterdom 
have sweetbreads, and, eating, fail to see the 
writing on the wall. 



\ 



78 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

Men and women stop on the stair-landing 
to look over the dining-room. They blend 
in with the painting — perhaps because some 
of them are painted, too. The evening 
wraps of the living women make the painted 
ones of Babylon look chilly. The effect is 
grotesque, yet it is ominous; for, as they 
stand there, Babylon is falling about the 
very ears of these gay, over-dressed, over-fed 
Americans. 

I don't know what the style of architec- 
ture is. The figure of a man like a design 
from a piece of ancient pottery, which is 
the trademark of the Cafe de I'Opera, 
seemed to me to be Assyrian. But a plump 
Swiss head waiter, who was probably born 
in the Savoy or the Ritz and came here to 
help run this place, assured me it was Per- 
sian; and no sane man ever contradicted a 
head waiter in a Lobster Lair. 

There's another dining-room, in the same 
style, on the second floor, and on the third a 
Japanese tea-room. Above are several 




A Little Man, Who Appears 
TO Be On a Diet, Is Providing 
FOR THE Wants of Three 
Healthy, Hungry Women 



LOBSTER PALACE SOCIETY 79 

floors of banquet-rooms,* private dining- 
rooms, and bachelor apartments. The 
bachelor apartments seem to be the only- 
rooms in the entire place which have no flesh 
tints painted on their walls ; but maybe they 
weren't finished when I saw them. 

Though it is getting late, let us, before 
we go, inspect the festive gathering in the 
main dining-room. At a table near us sits 
a woman with a figure like a pouter pigeon. 
She protects her elaborate dress by pinning 
her napkin to the highest available portion 
of it, with a diamond sunburst. At the next 
table a little man who appears to be on a 
diet, is providing for the wants of three 
healthy, hungry women. At still another 
table the arrangements of the numbers is 
the reverse: three men are with a dancer 
from a theatre a few doors down the Great 
White Way. 

We see two unmistakable chorus girls 

* As we go to press the cabaret and dance hall are run- 
ning, full blasx, on the top floor. See page 137. 



80 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

with unmistakable "Johnnies," besides sev- 
eral suspects with several "Mr. Feldmans." 
And we are grateful for the presence of a 
very lovely lady in a rue de la Paix gown 
and hat; although (as you'll see from the 
sketch) we saw only her back. Tables, ta- 
bles, tables; people, people, people; known 
and unknown; pretty and plain, the seers 
and the seen. Festive parties; family par- 
ties; parties not of the Tenderloin — merely 
visiting it as they might visit Chinatown; 
fashionables and would-be fashionables; 
Americans and New Yorkers. 

It is the custom of the Tenderloin to look 
with pity and amusement at those who are 
not of it. People from out of town are 
jokes. Why, one wonders? Why is it 
comic never to have been in any given place 
before? Why is it any droller not to know 
New York than not to know Omaha, or 
Lhasa? Yet these "typical New Yorkers" 
^^most of whom were born in Philadelphia, 
or places even more remote — find it droll. 



LOBSTER PALACE SOCIETY 81 

They love to look about a restaurant and 
declare that certain people, whom they indi- 
cate, must have come from Kankakee or 
Keokuk. They accuse strangers in town of 
"rubbering." Of course the strangers 
"rubber." They stare at New York as a 
New Yorker stares at Coney Island. For 
New York is, after all, the Coney Island of 
the nation. 

I know a man who was born in West 
Eleventh Street. He has a gold cigarette 
case, and a story, which he tells in restau- 
rants, about a man from out of town, who 
asked a Broadway waiter what pie a la mode 

was. 

"It is pie with ice cream on it," said the 

waiter. 

Presently the stranger was seen to be in 
great excitement. He had read up the 
menu until he came to beef a la mode, and 
was horrified to think New York could 
stomach such a combination. 

There are Tenderloin wags who have 



82 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

made local reputation and earned numerous 
good dinners by spinning funny yarns about 
the people at other tables. I am acquainted 
with such a man — a waddling edition of 
"Who's Who in the Lobster Palaces." 
And, like the other "Who's Who," he is a 
fat volume, appropriately bound in red. 
He considers any one who doesn't know the 
way to Sherry's, or Martin's, or the Knicker- 
bocker, very, very funny. I sometimes 
wonder if it ever struck him that he — like 
all the rest of us — ^must some day traverse 
spaces in an undiscovered country, which 
has no Sherry's, Martin's, Knickerbocker. 
He will be a stranger. Will he, therefore, 
find himself amusing? 

It is after one o'clock. The crowd at the 
Cafe de I'Opera is dwindling. We call for 
our check. If we have had a large supper, 
with champagne, for two, the bill may come 
to twelve or fourteen dollars, with another 







Of Course the Strangers 
"Rubber'' 




'.C^ 




1^ 



LOBSTER PALACE SOCIETY 83 

dollar for the waiter; if a moderate supper, 
less than half as much. 

As always, a spidery attendant from the 
cloak-room dashes forward with our coats 
and hats, levies his toll, and passes us out 
through a revolving door. 

All the outdoor lights, save those of the 
theatres, continue to burn furiously. The 
"smart" restaurants are emptying; many 
people are abroad. Some are going home, 
while others, with the true spirit of deep-sea 
Lobster Life, are "going on." In the Ten- 
derloin there are always places to go on to. 
For instance, there is Rector's.* 

Rector's remains open later than most of 
the other "gilt-edged" Lobster Lairs; it is 
gayer; high life is higher. You're apt to see 
Broadway celebrities; musical comedy fa- 
vourites, actors, actresses, show girls, women 
of not in the least "doubtful character," 
and the invariable sprinkling of onlookers. 

*This refers to the old Rector's, now replaced by the 
Hotel Rector. 



84 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

Show girls are starred at Rector's; af- 
fluent, opulent, effulgent looking girls who 
think that they will never leave Broadway. 
A few of them attain a meteoric notoriety 
through connection with scandals; a few 
rise to good positions on the stage; a few 
acquire fortunes by marriage, or by other 
means. But, as a rule, the Broadway show 
girl fades and disappears. The Tenderloin 
which was kind to her last year harvests an- 
other crop of pulchritude. She is forgotten, 
and the road-shows quickly snatch the rem- 
nants of her pitiful good looks. 

Poor, funny, pretty, dressed-up, painted 
girls-— members of tinkling yachting parties, 
automobile parties, and supper parties in the 
land of make-believe! What wonder that 
they want to try the game in earnest? 
Have they not their ideals of luxury, as you 
and I have ours? Yours may be a cigar a 
foot long, or a porcelain bathtub six feet 
long, or a limousine twenty feet long, or a 
steam yacht three hundred feet long. 



LOBSTER PALACE SOCIETY 85 

Mine may be a flannel shirt. To accom- 
plish our ideals we must make sacrifices. 
To get your yacht you may throw overboard 
your honest principles; to get my shirt I 
may give up my literary self-respect. And 
rest assured that if she wants to live the Lob- 
ster Palace Life, the show girl, too, must 
make her sacrifice. 

Rector's is one of the few large restaurants 
which has not a French name. To be sure, 
such names as JNIurray's, Shanley's, and 
Burns show in electric lights over the doors 
of certain eateries, and the large hotels seem 
to favour New York-sounding names : Astor, 
Knickerbocker, Hoffman, Waldorf-Astoria, 
Manhattan, Belmont, Gotham. Some of the 
hotels have special names for their restau- 
rants, however. Thus, for instance, the Cafe 
d'Armenonville, upstairs in the Hotel 
Knickerbocker, is named for the famous 
Pavilion d'Armenonville in the Bois de Bou- 
logne. The Cafe Madrid,* Maxim's, and 

* The Caf6 Madrid is gone. What was I'Abbaye is now 
Bustanoby's. 



86 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

FAbbaye also take the titles of famous Pari- 
sian restaurants which they do not otherwise 
particularly resemble. The Claremont, at 
the head of Riverside Drive, and the Casino 
in Central Park, are the nearest equivalents 
we have for the al fresco cafes of Paris. 

J. B. Martin's at Madison Square (re- 
cently torn down) was probably, more nearly 
like a typical big Paris boulevard cafe than 
any other New York restaurant, while Mou- 
quin's more resembles a good Latin Quarter 
eating place. When Delmonico's moved 
up to Forty-fourth Street, Martin's, in turn, 
moved from its first modest home in Uni- 
versity Place to the old Delmonico building. 
Meanwhile, the old Martin's, in other hands, 
became the Cafe Lafayette, which remains 
the most truly French of all Manhattan's 
eating-places. 

Martin's at Madison Square was far 
from being as modest, French and easy-go- 
ing, in spirit, as in its earlier home. Ob- 
streperous, Broadway infested it, and taught 



LOBSTER PALACE SOCIETY 87 

it to be brazen with success. It was at 
Martin's that the comically brilliant notion 
of serving nothing to drink but champagne 
after nine o'clock, on New Year's Eve, orig- 
inated. 

To get a table at all on New Year's Eve 
was difficult; when you got one you had to 
drink what you were told. Notices to this 
effect were posted in the cafe. Does this 
strike you as remarkable efTrontery? Let 
me tell you that it is not more remarkable 
than the ab j ect apathy with which Broadway 
received it. Martin's was almost always 
packed with eager spenders ; so are the other 
Broadway restaurants which copied the 
"champagne only" device as, indeed, they 
copy everything from one another. 

I know a man who once went to Martin's 
three weeks before New Year's to reserve a 
table for that night of nights. 

"Give me your order now," said a head 
waiter, "and I will see what can be done 
about it." In other words, he might have 



88 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

said: "If you agree to spend enough 
money, you may come." 

I passed a New Year's Eve there once. 
No one seemed to mind drinking "nothing 
but champagne." They not only drank 
champagne but spilled it on the tables 
and the floor. Many new acquaintances 
were made that night— and forgotten the 
next day. Every one was kind, indulgent. 
Now and then some cheerful person stood 
upon a table and bayed at the moon. But 
then, you must remember, it is not good 
form, in Lobster Palace Society, to be any- 
thing but drunk on New Year's Eve. 

The Cafe des Beaux Arts is a different 
sort of place. It occupies the two lower 
floors of a large studio building, midway be- 
tween Broadway and Fifth Avenue, in a 
neighbourhood of clubs rather than cafes. 
Whether the studios above it affect the 
flavour of the place, I do not know, but cer- 
tain it is that the Cafe des Beaux Arts has 



LOBSTER PALACE SOCIETY 89 

an individual air which, for lack of a better 
term, I shall have to call "Bohemian." 
("Smart Bohemians," a circular issued by 
the cafe calls its patrons.) The word 
"Bohemian" has come into bad odour of late 
years, but I know of no good substitute. 
The Century Dictionary defines a Bohemian 
as : "A person, especially an artist or a liter- 
ary man, who leads a free and often some- 
what dissipated life, having little regard to 
what society he frequents, and despising con- 
ventionalities generally." 

To these requirements might have been 
added, I think, a soft hat, a flowing necktie, 
and dirty finger nails. 

But what is "Smart Bohemia"? To 
judge from the Cafe des Beaux Arts, it is 
as well dressed, as well mannered as the very 
best of Lobster Palace Society. It likes 
good things to eat, good music, a jolly time. 
True Bohemia, in the old sense of the word, 
was something which could not be created. 



90 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

It just happened. And it was frail: stare 
at it, call it "Bohemia," write an article 
about it, and it ceased to be Bohemia and be- 
came a shoe clerk's paradise. New York is 
full of such quasi-Bohemia : chop-suey-Bo- 
hemia, spaghetti-Bohemia, watered- wine- 
Bohemia. But the cheap table d'hote is not 
a Lobster Palace and does not come within 
our scope. 

The three dining-rooms of the Cafe des 
Beaux Arts are moderate in size; snug 
rooms, with tables fairly close together. 
There is a Neapolitan string quartette, an 
orchestra, and a corps of several vocal solo- 
ists, all good. They go from room to room, 
so that you get variety, with neither too much 
nor too little music. Meanwhile you eat 
(and drink if you want to) very well, for in 
these things "smart Bohemia" fares much 
better than its lowly prototype. Thursday 
night is the big night at the Beaux Arts, 
though an eif ort is being made by the pro- 
prietors to turn every night into a Thursday. 



LOBSTER PALACE SOCIETY 91 

The place is very gay on these big nights; 
a real esprit develops, and one may hear fine 
singing from a "volunteer" among the peo- 
ple at the tables. Bonci has sung there, as 
well as other grand opera stars; and Anna 
Held, Blanche Ring, David Warfield, 
George Beban, and others of the stage have 
been known to do a "stunt," from sheer glad- 
ness of heart. The very possibility of such a 
happening lifts the place into a niche which 
is unique. 

But, even on Thursday nights at the 
Beaux Arts, there comes a time when gaie- 
ties must end. To go on to the other places 
now is nothing short of prowling. Still, if 
you simply refuse to go to bed — there is the 
Cafe Madrid. 

- The IVIadrid used to be Churchill's,* the 
chateau dfhomard of a retired police captain 
of that name, who had a strong aversion to 
closing up, or closing down, before the crack 

* Not only is the Madrid gone, but Churchill has another 
place — George Rector another — so it goes, from month to 
month and year to year ! 



92 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

of dawn. Dawn breaks so beautifully upon 
the Tenderloin! When the chairs were piled 
upon the tables in the other places, the night 
owls used to make for Churcliill's, where, 
unless they got too rough, they could stay on, 
and on, and on. 

Churchill sold the place to George Rector, 
who is not only the son of his father, but a 
graduate, with honours, of such gastronomic 
establishments as Marguery's and the Cafe 
de Paris. To have studied cooking under 
the late Monsieur Marguery is equivalent to 
having studied singing under Jean de 
Reszke. Mr. Rector not only renamed 
Churchill's — calling it the Cafe Madrid-=< 
but instituted reforms as to equipment, 
cuisine, and etiquette. The reforms are in 
no wise painful. The Cafe Madrid may 
still be called a lively spot in the early morn- 
ing hours. You may see there people who 
are in Lobster Palace Society but not in the 
Four Hundred, and — ^hist! — you may also 
see some people who are in both. It is 



LOBSTER PALACE SOCIETY 93 

extraordinary how the two sets overlap each 
other at the edges — people from Fifth Ave- 
nue are such climbers, anyway. 

The Madrid is not large, as compared 
■with some other restaurants around Eating- 
house Square, but it is an extremely busy 
little place, and is occupied by a peculiarly 
Lobsterian society. Two hundred pounds 
of the symbolic shellfish are consumed there 
every night. For the rest, you may stay till 
daylight if you wish, so long as you behave. 
But do behave, for there are two sturdy 
gentlemen about who are capable of mak- 
ing it quite clear to any one that "rough 
house" is not deemed au fait at the Madrid, 
this season. Have all the fun you want, 
but everybody must act "genTmumly." 

In the pious times before Churchill's was 
invented, those who were intent on sitting up 
all night usually wound up by tacking over 
toward Sixth Avenue, where Burns and 
Jack's continued operations. Jack's got 
pretty wild at times— by which I mean no 



94 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

disrespect to Burns. About three in the 
morning some sensitive soul, pickled in 
wines, liquors, and cigars, might suddenly 
grow boisterous, or jealous, or peevish. 
Then some one might throw a saltcellar or 
champagne glass at some one — an act which 
is termed "starting something." If some- 
one "started something" 'round at Jack's it 
always ended quickly, and someone sud- 
denly woke up and found that someone was 
sitting on the car tracks. Jack's is frankly 
what it is, and the frank, straightaway, 
strong-arm method of keeping a disordered 
sort of order there, is not without its merits. 
It gives an air of wholesomeness — compara- 
tively, at least — that I should like to see in 
certain other cafes which I shall not call by 
name. 

Dramatic critics know that to attack a play 
as being vulgar or indecent has the undesir- 
able effect of booming it. There are a lot 
of prurient people in the Tenderloin, as well 



LOBSTER PALACE SOCIETY 95 

as in the rest of the world. That is why I 
shall not name these other places. 

We happened into them late on the night 
of Lincoln's Birthday, or, rather, early on 
the morning following. The sad face of 
Lincoln gazed from the wine-soaked menu 
I was given. Around us drunken patriots 
were celebrating, while not far off a hired 
singer with an execrable voice and an offen- 
sively insinuating manner sang a song so 
vulgar that even this audience did not ap- 
plaud it. Later came a burlesque of a pa- 
triotic air, telling of: 

Husbands dancing hand in hand. 
Shouting the Battle Cry of Freedom! 

And it was Lincoln's Birthday! 

The place was httered with confetti. 
Blear-eyed people leaned upon the tables. 
Glasses were upset. The noise made us 
dizzy. Five weak-faced youths sat at a 
nearby table; when an overdressed young 



96 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

woman of the Tenderloin trailed in, one of 
them laughed and made an insulting remark. 
The woman swore and sent her escort to de- 
mand apologies. He did so, in a genial 
manner, and in a moment all were friends. 
And so they settled it — all of them — by 
having a friendly drink together. 

On with the debauch ! We saw a woman, 
appropriately dressed in scarlet, pick up her 
skirts and jump over a man who was lying 
on the floor. We saw a drunken young girl 
half carried from the room. The scene be- 
came a dusty, dirty dream, peopled with 
caricatures and smelling stale as a plush 
dress on which a goblet of champagne has 
been upset. 

Approximately twenty thousand people 
have supper in or near the Tenderloin each 
night. Next year, when newer Lobster 
Lairs are built, the number is expected to 
increase to thirty thousand. Several thou- 
sand pounds of lobster, and several thousand 



LOBSTER PALACE SOCIETY 97 

quarts of champagne (besides innumerable 
other things to eat and drink) are served by 
several thousand waiters, every night. And 
in the morning there are several thousand 
empty pocketbooks and several thousand 
aching heads. 

You have doubtless heard Mr. James J. 
Hill's shrewd epigram to the effect that it 
is not so much the high cost of living which 
ails the United States, as the cost of high- 
living. 

The cost of eating lobster must increase. 
The demand grows, but the supply dimin- 
ishes. Millions of pounds of lobster are 
caught along our coasts each season, but the 
government statistics show that, despite the 
work of various fish commissions, the avail- 
able supply has shrunk more than fifty per 
cent, within the past three years. In short, 
starvation stares the Tenderloin directly in 
the double chin ! 



98 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

With the coming of the purifying, steel- 
blue light of dawn, we flee like jungle beasts 
that feed at night. 

''Morning Telegraphy sir?" 

We take the paper. The boy demands 
ten cents; five for the paper, five for the 
"sir," perhaps. 

As we move toward the subway entrance 
we pass the Cafe de I'Opera, deserted, cold, 
and grey, and, thinking of the fall of Baby- 
lon, we shiver. It must be getting chilly. 
We started out to be amused. But, have 
we been? 



''NO ADMITTANCE" 



Ill 

"NO ADMITTANCE" 

IT is a battered little door tucked away, 
almost always, in a decayed side street 
or dingy court and sheltered by a flimsy 
wooden vestibule, as secretive and disrep- 
utable looking as the side entrance of a 
Raines-law hotel; and, like the Raines-law 
door, it usually sleeps idly through the day, 
but wakes to shadowy activity when night 
begins to fall. What you find at the stage 
door depends largely upon yourself, your 
business, and your point of view concerning 
the stage entrance of a theatre. 

The guardian of the portal is a bulky 
misanthrope, combining the suspicious na- 
ture of a Russian frontier policeman with 
the bristling manner of the Jack-in-the-box 
that guarded the toy kingdom in the fairy 

101 



102 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

tale. In every stranger who appears at 
the stage door, he sees either a process 
server with a summons for the star, a Pitts- 
burg Lochinvar who has come out of the 
West to carry off a fairy princess, or a mere 
case of "touch" — in any case an undesirable 
alien. 

When, on a recent occasion, the Artist 
and myself undertook to beard the doorman 
in his den, I told the Artist (who has a most 
persuasive manner) that he might do the 
talking. But it turned out that the door- 
man did most of it. . . . "Well, what 
d' y' want?" . . . "Well, he's busy." . . . 
"Well, what d' y' want to see 'im about?" 
. . . Meanwhile I pretended to be reading 
the dressing-room list, the boarding-house 
list, the rehearsal call, and the "No Ad- 
mittance" and "No Smoking" signs, which 
are posted just inside the door of every 
theatre. 

When, at last, we were admitted, the Art- 
ist rushed to the stage, snatched a gilded and 




The Stace-door Man 



"NO ADMITTANCE" 103 

beribboned three-legged milking stool from 
a gilded and beribboned two-legged milk- 
maid, dropped down upon it, and began to 
sketch — just to show he was sincere. 

In these days of high-school fraternities 
,and juvenile men of the world, the youngest 
of us all knows something of the seamy side 
of the theatrical curtain. Our sons inform 
us that New Haven, once a famous seat of 
learning, has latterly become a celebrated 
"dog town"; a place where "shows" are 
"tried out "---with all the implied educational 
advantages. 

But for my part, I must confess that 
when I pass into the region which we call 
"behind the scenes" (referred to in the 
theatre as "back"), my attitude is not that 
of calm, cynical scrutiny. The bare brick 
walls, the iron stairways leading up to dress- 
ing-rooms; the shadowy, black fly-gallery, 
far above; the dusty, splintered boards be- 
neath my feet; the canvas side-scenes cov- 
ered with rude painting, or with the backs of 



104. WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

books glued on in rows to make a library; 
above all, the inscrutable painted people 
waiting for their cues amid a litter of furni- 
ture, lighting apparatus, and "props," all 
combine to thrill me with the feeling that I 
have passed from the practical world intO; 
the warehouse of mystery and illusion. 

Let the current of stage realism roar like 
a torrent over the footlights, not an ounce of 
it eddies into the backwaters of the wings. 
From the front the ordered drama may move 
with technical perfection toward its climax, 
but seen through a hole in the back drop, it 
becomes unconvincing and grotesque. That 
little peephole, so dear to the stage hands, is 
an opera-glass which sees Make-believe 
stalking upon the boards, a naked thing, 
brazen and absurd. 

An actor whose age you cannot guess, 
through the wrinkles pencilled on his face 
and the white wig bulging over his hair, 
walks slowly off the stage. He is the father 
in the play. He comes and talks with you 




Let the Current of Stage Realism 
Roar, Like a Torrent, Over the 
Footlights, Not an Ounce of It 
Eddies Into the Backwaters of 
the Wings 



"NO ADMITTANCE" 105 

about the baseball scores. Near by, a plank 
and two sand-bags are dropped upon a quilt 
stretched out upon the boards. The sound 
is that of a dead, crumpling fall. A young 
actor, beyond the canvas wall, shrieks 
"Father!" and comes rushing off the scene. 
Then he strolls over and shakes hands with 
you, but, as he does so, turns his face stage- 
ward and bellows : "Get the doctor !" Then 
he joins calmly in the baseball talk. 

Meanwhile there is agitated running on 
and off. A maid in cap and apron hurries 
up a flight of stairs which, once out of view 
of the audience, ends abruptly in mid-air. 
At the top of the flight she waits long enough 
to have ascended to a bedroom on a supposi- 
titious second floor. Then, taking up a 
pillow, which the property man must put 
there every night, she rushes down again, 
seen briefly by the audience as she passes 
the hall door. 

And what does it all mean? 

It means that poor old "father" (still 



106 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

talking baseball with you) had an apoplec- 
tic stroke and fell upon the stairs. The 
plank and sand-bags that they dropped 
were "father." And, of course, the maid 
ran up and got the pillow to ease "father's" 
final moments. "Father" is dead, and the 
first act is over. So, presently, when the 
topic of baseball is exhausted (which it 
quickly is with me) "father" says good-night 
and hastens to his dressing-room, envied by 
all the other members of the company. 
From the front his stroke is tragedy. From 
the back it is luck — a short part that lets 
"father" leave the theatre in time to see the 
latter half of all the other plays on Broad- 
way. For it is a fact worth noting that few 
lovers of the theatre see so little of it as 
successful players. 

Take your actor friend to dinner, or— if 
you can get him to — let him take you. Talk 
with him of current affairs — if you can keep 
him from talking of himself. After dinner 




Jack" Barrymore 



"NO ADMITTANCE" 107 

accompany him to the theatre in which he is 
comedian, hero, or villain. In his dressing- 
room he slips out of his street clothes, sits 
down before a mirror, and daubs his face 
with grease paint. Stroke by stroke, your 
friend disappears before your eyes, until, 
with the last touch, he is quite gone. He has 
become a painted picture. 

"Make-up," said De Goncourt, "coarsens 
the skin, makes the muscles immovable, and 
does not permit the soul of the actor to pass 
through his plastered face." As your 
friend's soul leaves his face, it also leaves the 
conversation. You do not feel at home with 
this new, vague personality. 

With actresses it is not quite the same. 
In conversing with an actress who is heavily 
made up, you (or should I say I?) become 
only slightly more absurd than when talking 
with a lady of the audience who wears a 
merely non-professional tint. The conver- 
sation takes the lady's hue. Paint is no 
thicker on the stage to-day than twenty 



108 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

years ago, but it is thicker in the parquet 
and the boxes. It is not the theatre, but the 
theatre-goer (which is to say, broadly, 
American society) that grows artificial. 
The actor and the actress are the only human 
beings who are paid for being other than 
the Creator made them; the rest of us are 
doing it for nothing. 

The disappearance of your actor friend 
behind his mask of make-up is not only 
seeming. The costume is his business suit 
and the hour his business hour. Descend 
with him to the stage. Watch him go on 
for his scene with the woman star. See the 
suave way they play together, falling at last 
into each other's arms. 

When the scene is over, your friend ap- 
pears before you with a dramatic gesture of 
despair : 

"You see what I'm up against!" 

You don't see. 

"My boy! Do you mean to say that 



^\'H/j^ 




Mm iii*«;oJ|FRy ^BAGC \ 



Paint Is Xo Thicker on the 
Stage To-day. But It Is 
Thicker in the Parquet 
AND the Boxes 



'^NO ADMITTANCE" 109 

you Ve not noticed how she kills my lines? 
My laughs go for nothing! It's absurd to 
call her an artist. Why, she absolutely hogs 
everything!" 

How often we see love scenes between an 
actor and an actress who are not on speak- 
ing terms, or, worse, are on unpleasant 
speaking terms. How often the sweet noth- 
ings which the audience hears are like poi- 
soned candies. I have known a star to seize 
his leading woman's hand and, bending over 
to imprint a lover-like kiss upon it, whisper: 
"For Heaven's sake, why don't you clean 
your nails?" . . . Oddly enough, he told me 
that, himself! 

If the actor does not see through his own 
foibles, he at least views those of his pro- 
fession with a keenly ironic eye. No stories 
could be droller or more full of human char- 
acter than an actor's stories about actors — 
that one, for instance, about the handsome 
leading man who opened a letter that con- 



110 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

tained a tailor's dun, glanced through it, 
crumpled it up, and sighed: "Poor little 
girl!" 

The egotism of the theatre is by no means 
confined to the players. If it originated 
with them it was contagious, for everybody 
in the playhouse has it now. The star is an 
egotist, the manager is an egotist, the lead- 
ing woman and the leading man are egotists, 
the stage carpenter is an egotist, the prop- 
erty man is an egotist, the electrician is an 
egotist, the orchestra leader is particularly 
an egotist (which may account to some ex- 
tent for the quality of theatre orchestras), 
the ushers are egotists, the box-office man, 
who tells you there are two left in the nine- 
teenth row, is an egotist, and, to complete 
the list, the people who buy seats of him are 
egotists as well. 

The "back stage" egotists are hungry for 
publicity. 

"You're a writer, aren't you?" demands 
the electrician. "Here's a little piece I 




In Arcady 







h 






r > 



''NO ADMITTANCE" 111 

wrote myself. You might use it in your 
paper. It tells all about theatre lighting. 
And say, mention my name— Cassidy." 

Looking at the press sheet he has handed 
you, you discover that Mr. Cassidy has been 
indulging in the peculiar pastime of inter- 
viewing himself. His interview begins with 
the statement that "there is always some- 
thing interesting about the theatre and 
theatrical affairs to the ordinary person." 
Being a very ordinary person, you read on 
and presently find out that the most inter- 
esting of all '*the interesting things about 
the theatre and theatrical affairs" is Mr. 
Cassidy. 

You escape from Mr. Cassidy and go to 
the star's dressing-room. He gives you a 
cigarette and has his dresser shut the door so 
that the fireman won't smell the smoke. 
Then he shows you a stack of letters on his 
dressing-table. It is the matinee idol's 
daily crop. 

"Yes, you'll see a crowd of girls outside 



112 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

the stage door after the performance. . . . 
They follow me to my hotel. . . . You'd be 
surprised to see how ladylike some of them 
look. . . . There was one ... a charming 
little thing, too. Her father was one of the 
biggest men on the Dubuque Board of 
Trade. . . . She was fairly mad about me. 
. . . Ah, well! ... I gave her some good 
advice and sent her home." 

His "entrance music" sounds. He rises 
from his chair, throws his cloak over one 
shoulder with a dramatic gesture, and stalks 
onto the stage. As you watch him go you 
are touched upon the arm. It is the stage- 
manager. 

"Be around at the end of the second act," 
he says, "and I'll show you something." 

At the end of the second act you are ac- 
cordingly "around." 

"Nobody's got an idea how much I have 
to do with his success," the stage-manager 
declares, as you look out between the wings 
at the scene in the courtyard of the inn. 







An Echo of "Floradora" 



"NO ADMITTANCE" 113 

which nears its thrilling climax. "Just wait 
a minute. You'll see." 

A moment later the big fight scene is on. 
The star's invincible rapier vanquishes, 
singly, a host of villains, piercing their astral 
bodies. The curtain drops. There is a 
burst of applause, sounding from the stage, 
like heavy rain upon a roof. 

"He likes to make curtain speeches," says 
the stage-manager, ringing up the curtain 
for the encore, "but Tm the one that really 
gets the calls for him. For instance, that's 
what we call a 'quick curtain' ; it teases the 
bunch out there." 

Indeed, it seems to "tease" them, for the 
applause redoubles. 

Again the quick curtain, this time reveal- 
ing star and leading woman. 

When this has been repeated several 
times, the applause diminishes. The wily 
stage-manager now leaves the curtain down 
for a long moment, but does not shut off the 
footlights nor illuminate the auditorium. 



114 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

The audience consequently remains seated 
and expectant. 

"Watch this," he says, with a wink, as he 
seizes the edge of the curtain and shakes it 
gently. Instantly the hands begin to clap 
again. The people out in front have seen 
the movement of the drapery and jumped to 
the conclusion that the star is coming out, 
alone, to bow. And they are very, very 
right. He appears, and with one hand on 
his heaving chest, and the other on the crim- 
son curtain back of him, bows low, and exits 
quickly. This also is repeated several times 
— ^including curtain shaking. 

"That's about all they'll stand," says the 
stage-manager at last. The star, it seems, 
is of the same opinion, for this time he does 
not withdraw so quickly but, after bowing, 
pauses. There is a deprecating smile upon 
his face, which seems to say: "Well, since 
you insist — '' The house goes silent in an 
instant. There follows a moment in which 
the star seems to collect his thoughts. Then 



*'N0 ADMITTANCE" 115 

he makes his speech — the little speech that 
he has made a thousand or two times before : 
some flower of thought, as I recall it, about 
"thanking you one and all." 

It is over in an instant. The stage-man- 
ager touches a button; the footlights are 
turned off, the house lights on. Stage- 
hands are already setting the scene for the 
third act, incidentally menacing your life by 
shooting canvas rocks upon you at express 
train speed and dropping painted forests on 
your head. 

"Of course, the whole play came out of 
my novel," says the author of whichever of 
the six best sellers the play was taken from. 
(He is one of the great brood of literary 
Hopes raised by the author of "The Prisoner 
of Zenda.") "It's really my dramatisation 
that gets the applause," thinks the dram- 
atist. "Confidentially, it's all my acting," 
says the star. "It's my beauty," says the 
leading woman, glancing at her mirror. 
"It's my tricks," the stage-manager assures 



116 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

you. "It's our applause," the audience 
cajoles itself as it gets into its limousine. 
And as the ushers make their final hunt be- 
neath the seats for the nightly crop of jew- 
ellery, handkerchiefs, and gloves they doubt- 
less say among themselves, "We done 
it." 

A certain friend of mine is forever char- 
ging me with uttering generalities. But 
what is one to do? To call players fascinat- 
ing, emotional egotists, to declare them hard- 
working, underpaid, ambitious, is to gener- 
alise. To say that all men have two legs is 
to generalise— and, incidentally, to do in- 
justice to the flourishing industry of ampu- 
tation. There is something about the stage, 
and also about legs, that induces general- 
ities. Both, for example, are sometimes 
called immoral. Dumas the younger called 
the playhouse an immoral house, and Mr. 
Anthony Comstock and Mr, Florence Zieg- 
feld seem to be united in their opinion as to 
the immorality of legs — though it is but 



**N0 ADMITTANCE" 117 

fair to add that the belief leads them into 
widely different fields of action. 

Every one should know, by this time, that 
there are very moral stages, and every one 
does know that there are ridiculously moral 
legs. I have some rather deep convictions 
about both. I believe that the ballet dan- 
cer may be, and usually is, a spectacle as 
moral as a decoration on a Christmas tree. 
An ogling show girl in long skirts, pran- 
cing up and down before the footlights to the 
accompaniment of cheap music, may, on the 
other hand, be funny, vulgar, or immoral, as 
you look at it. She is a horrible reality, like 
so much raw beef. But the ballet dancer, 
flying through the air, with her twinkling 
pink legs and pointed toes, her gauze skirts 
and her eternal smile is, from the front, the 
most unreal of all the theatre's unrealities. 
She is no more real than an elaborate doll 
that is put away each night in a box with 
sachets and pink tissue paper. 

I shall never forget an evening on which 



118 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

we watched the Russian dancers, Mordkin 
and Pavlowa, from the wings of the Metro- 
politan Opera House. The last act of a 
spectacular German opera was in progress 
as we reached the mammoth stage. Through 
mysterious semi-darkness, full of moving 
figures, we worked our slow way to the 
wings. Green and blue footlights cast a 
dim, uncanny light upon the stage, set to 
represent a dank and rocky glen, in which 
raged a storm of supernatural fury. Thun- 
der rolled — rolled literally, in the form of 
wooden balls that tumbled down a chute. 
The wind machine howled horribly. A 
thunderbolt slid down a wire and hissed out 
in a pail of water. Bats and will-o'-the- 
wisps flitted at the ends of wires, strange 
beasts crawled, gongs tolled, chains clanked, 
the orchestra gave forth melancholy waves 
of sound, and owls flapped their wings as a 
group of chorus women, just off the stage, 
gave voice to the wailing cry, "Whoo-ee! 
Whoo-ee!" 




.;«l^ iiilk/iTS'WiEK.V TlACe 



MORDKIN AND PaVLOWA 



"NO ADMITTANCE" 119 

The storm was terrible, but brief. As its 
distant thunder died off among the painted 
hills, the full moon rose slowly, on its wire, 
in the peaceful sky of the back drop. Its 
soft electric light fell like a benediction on the 
canvas glen, and shimmered on a waterfall, 
behind which an industrious young man in a 
soiled sweater revolved an electric light 
cylinder. And as the peace of highly artifi- 
cial night descended over all the world of 
calcium and canvas, the opera reached its 
end. 

Like the flights of brilliant insects that 
appear after a tempest, the ballerinas now 
came flitting to the stage. From some- 
where — beyond the great curtain or under 
the stage — came the medley of muffled 
sound that indicates a tuning orchestra. 
Violins shrilled brief, dissonant frivolities to 
their relatives, the bass viols and 'cellos, 
which replied in deprecating, serious tones. 
Flutes laughed in droll chromatic runs, ket- 
tledrums uttered rumbling chuckles, low- 



120 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

pitched wind-instruments brayed sardonic- 
ally, even a harp rippled, as a sweet-voiced 
woman laughs behind her fan. I love to 
hear a great orchestra tune up. It always 
sounds to me as though the instruments 
were whispering the gossip of the hour and 
making bantering remarks to one another, 
before settling down to work. It is a sound 
full of promise, and it always fills me with 
a delightful sense of expectancy. 

As the tuning ceased, the ballerinas, after 
rubbing their flat, stiff -soled slippers in resin 
boxes, ranged themselves in rows upon the 
stage, now set with a sweet woodland scene. 
Then all eyes turned toward the wings, 
where the two Russians appeared, moving 
with easy, sinuous grace. Even in walking 
they were beautiful to watch. I was struck 
at once by the fact that both were below the 
average in height, though from the front I 
had received a quite opposite impression. 

Of course, the matter of stature in the 
theatre is purely relative. Size is one of the 



"NO ADMITTANCE" 121 

most important factors in the engaging of a 
company. The little star wants pygmy 
players to surround him. A tall leading 
woman, however beautiful and talented, 
would make him look ridiculous in a romantic 
scene. I think it is Paul Wilstach who, 
in his book on the late Richard Mansfield, 
tells of the built-up boots, the illusory at- 
titudes, and the cunningly scaled down fur- 
niture which that actor utilised to make him- 
self look larger. I do not know whether 
ballerinas always come in tiny packages, or 
not, but those surrounding Mordkin and 
Pavlowa were all so small as to make the 
Russians look quite large by contrast. 

Almost simultaneously with the arrival 
of the famous pair upon the stage, the over- 
ture struck up. The ballerinas assumed at- 
titudes. Then, with a hissing sweep, the 
curtain rose. It was like the bursting of a 
dam. A torrent of music and of brilliant 
light rushed in, snatched the little ballerinas, 
and swirled them madly in its maelstrom. 



122 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

And at the very centre of it all, like a pair 
of iridescent bubbles cast up by the flood, 
floated Mordkin and Pavlowa. 

My doll fancy departed as I saw them 
dance. I could see their steel muscles 
gather for each bound, and hear the heavy 
thud of their toes upon the rough boards, 
after each soaring flight. Sometimes, as 
they flew by my hiding place, I even heard 
a quick-snatched breath. 

When it was over Pavlowa was tired. All 
elasticity seemed to have gone from her slen- 
der little body. She walked slowly to the 
stairway leading upward to her dressing- 
room. Despite her fatigue I half expected 
her to give a leap and float up to the top 
step; but she did not. She paused wearily 
at the bottom of the flight. Then Mordkin 
came, and, taking one of her hands, went up 
ahead, tugging, while Pavlowa trudged 
after, drooping and flat-footed in her finery 
^a picture both pathetic and grotesque. 

Apropos of this, it is worth mentioning 



"NO ADMITTANCE" 123 

that in the Century Theatre players are not 
forced to walk up-stairs. One very prac- 
tical way to "elevate the stage," it seems to 
me, is to elevate the actor in an elevator. 

Another way might be to elevate the taste 
of the audiences. 

The audience can make the theatre what 
it wills, but the theatre cannot make the 
audience. If we have vulgar "shows," it is 
because we have vulgar people to attend 
them. If we have vulgar "comedians," it is 
because we have vulgar pleasure-seekers to 
applaud them. It is so easy to be vulgar! 
You needn't even try — just let yourself go. 
What is the thing they call a "typical Broad- 
way show" but one group of vulgar people 
who get upon a stage and let themselves go 
before another group of vulgar people? A 
vulgar librettist (who, before the days of 
"musical shows," would probably have found 
a place in life as a writer of rhymes in praise 
of soups or breakfast foods) lets himself go, 
and naturally produces maudlin ditties, 



124 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

rhyming "love" with "turtle dove." A vul- 
gar composer then makes up a set of tra-la-la 
tunes, reminiscent of last season's crop. A 
vulgar manager engages a vulgar company 
and, after rehearsals by a vulgar stage mana- 
ger, the vulgar show is ready for a vulgar 
audience. Isn't it simple? Isn't it easier 
than to create and put upon the stage clever, 
clean-cut comic operas, which are so rare? 

And why trouble to be intelligent if peo- 
ple don't demand it of you? Why write a 
witty libretto, why compose good music, why 
engage legitimate comedians or good sing- 
ers when people seem content without them? 
You know as well as I do what will make 
an American audience roar with laughter. 
It likes men in red whiskers to sing Irish 
songs. It likes men in plaid waistcoats 
stuffed with pillows, to splutter salivary 
German dialect into each other's faces. It 
likes fat women and fat men in little round 
hats, and it wants them to fall down while 
the drummer bangs his drum, and a stage- 




/»»ottK(^u6jtY ^RAe<: 



There Must Be a Heroine 
TO Sing Love Songs 



"NO ADMITTANCE" 125 

hand drops the crash-box, in the wings. 
Then there must be a sort of hero and a 
sort of heroine to sing love songs, and there 
must be girls, girls, girls. Perhaps I should 
have mentioned the girls first. 

From a strictly back-stage standpoint, the 
musical show is the most colourful and pic- 
turesque. The orchestra is forever strum- 
ming out gay tunes, the people are forever 
running back and forth in costumes pretty 
or comic, rushing on singly or in groups to 
sing or dance, then oiF again and up the iron 
stairs, to dressing-rooms, and other dresses. 
The air vibrates with life, light, and colour. 

Despite the fact that celebrated actors of 
the legitimate stage— among them Jefferson 
and Mansfield — have risen from the chorus, 
a gap separates the people of the musical 
stage from those of the "legit." They are 
like different tribes of the same race, and 
they mingle to no great extent. The atmos- 
phere, back stage, is not at all the same. 
The musical stage, while not invariably so. 



126 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

is generally more free and easy. Christian 
names— or perhaps I should say Christian 
stage names — are tossed freely back and 
forth : 

"Say, Goldie, come over with my rouge 
pot." 

"Aw, forget it, Beatrice. I ain't see' it." 

If, instead of Goldie and Beatrice, they 
elaborately call each other "Miss Went- 
worth" and "Miss St. Clair," there is no 
indication of respect implied. On the con- 
trary, it means a feud; and when the bad 
blood of those fine old families, the Went- 
worths and the St. Clairs of musical comedy, 
is aroused, one had better stand aside; for, 
even if nothing else is thrown, there is certain 
to be "langwidge." 

For magnificence, only negro names can 
rival those of chorus girls. They take them 
whence they please. Neither society, fi- 
nance, nor literature is safe from their pil- 
laging researches. The chorus has its 
Vanderbilts, its Astors, its Belmonts, not to 







We Like Fat Men in 
Little Round Hats 



"NO ADMITTANCE" 127 

mention its Montagues and Capulets. I 
remember one girl with masses of red hair 
who was known as Zaza Belasco, and 
another, with, perhaps, a penchant for jewel- 
lery, who was called Diamond Donner.* 
The names of the young women who fig- 
ure in the programme under the headings: 
"Typewriter Girls, Tennis Girls, Summer 
Girls" are only too often funnier than the 
libretto. 

The styles in women for these shows 
change like the styles in clothing. Where 
is the spear-carrying "Amazon" of yester- 
year? Has she become extinct, or evolution- 
ised by banting? Where is the tall, slender 
London "Gaiety Girl"? London doesn't 
want her any more. It now requires slender 
young girls whom it designates as "flappers." 

Girls for the Broadway musical show of 
to-day come in sizes like the three bears in 
the children's story. There is the "great 
big" show girl, the "medium-sized" chorus 

* Truth is stranger than musical comedy! Someone 
writes me that this is her real name! 



128 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

girl, and the "little bit of a wee, wee" dan- 
cer. 

Owing partly to uniformities of form and 
costume, partly to the heavy masks of make- 
up, and partly, perhaps, to other and more 
subtle likenesses, these girls seem, at close 
range, to resolve themselves into three types 
which are duplicated over and over as by a 
mould. You feel that you could hold a con- 
versation with one show girl and, when she 
went on to represent a lady at the races, 
continue it with any of the others, without a 
seeming break. 

About the chorus girls and the dancers 
you feel the same. They are simply scaied 
down from the show girls in size and, I 
fancy in "prosperity." The girl whom we 
saw working at embroidery behind the scenes 
was a chorus girl. So was the one who 
read Rousseau. So was the one who had 
been in the chorus of the Metropolitan 
Opera and wanted to go into vaudeville so 
that she and her young actor husband might 



"NO ADMITTANCE" 129 

be more together. But none of these was 
really true to type. They didn't even look 
so, and I like to fancy that their destinies 
are not the same as those of girls out of the 
mould. 

But for the rest— Who are they, where do 
they come from, and why? The press agent 
has data of a not too satisfactory kind. 
Four of the eighty-eight girls in one repre- 
sentative company were graduates of wom- 
en's colleges — so it was said. Sixteen had 
attended colleges, but had not graduated. 
Twenty-seven were high-school graduates, 
thirty-one had finished grammar school, and 
ten left school young to go to work. Eight 
were married, and all loved to "see their 
pictures in the paper," excepting one who 
didn't want her mother to find out that she 
was on the stage. Only seven of the eighty- 
eight were born in the city of New York; 
thirty-two were foreign-born, and the re- 
maining forty-nine hailed from twenty-three 
states. Their ages ranged from seventeen 



130 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

to twenty-nine, sixty per cent, of them be- 
ing under twenty-three. 

The remaining statistics were principally 
concerned with heights, weights, colourings, 
and measurements, and seem too bare to bear 

upon this article except that they show 

the point of view regarding chorus women. 
They are matched as horses are matched, 
and are valuable as horses are valuable: for 
reliability, endurance, good looks, and styl- 
ish action. 

The statistics concerning education among 
the chorus girls surprised me. I am sure 
that I have never talked with one of them 
who went to college, though I have met sev- 
eral who gave every sign of having left 
school at a very, very early age; as, for ex- 
ample, the one who asked me at the time of 
the Cook-Peary controversy: "What's this 
North Pole that they're all the time talking 
about? Have they got a town up there?" 

There is a kind of show girl — the "typical 
Broadway show girl," they call her^ — who 




They Are Valuable as Horses 
Are Valuable : For Reliability, 
Endurance, Good-looks and 
Stylish Action 



"NO ADMITTANCE" 131 

has, along the Great White Way, an odd 
sort of celebrity. She is seen about the 
restaurants, every night, with men who are 
conspicuous socially, financially, or drunk- 
enly. Your Broadway mentor points her 
out to you as "the girl who got all the money 
out of young So-and-so," or "the girl who 
caused the What's-their-name's divorce." 
It seems from what he tells you that neither 
So-and-so nor What's-his-name had much to 
do with it. It was the woman; she tempted 
him and he did eat. It was, as the news- 
papers would say, an "actress"; a woman 
following what Birrell, in his "Obiter Dicta," 
calls "the only profession commanding fame 
and fortune the kind consideration of man 
has left open to her." 

"For two centuries," says Birrell, "women 
have been free to follow this profession, on- 
erous and exacting though it be, and by 
doing so have won the rapturous admiration 
of men, who are all ready to believe that 
where their pleasure is involved, no risks of 



132 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

life or honour are too great for a woman to 



run." 



Unless it be the women of that smart so- 
ciety which they ape and envy, I suppose 
there is no class of women in the world so 
morbidly mundane, so super-sophisticated 
as these "successful" show girls, surrounded, 
as they are, by shams, false values, sordid- 
ness. They have their following, know why 
they have it, and how to make what seems 
to them the most of it. 

There was in New York a year or two ago 
a show called *' Girlies." It was advertised 
by the manager responsible for it with the 
catch line : ''None of them married ; none of 
them twenty." 

Can you not see a Turkish slave dealer 
with a caravan of women going to market 
with that exultant cry? 

Girlies — none of them married, none of 
them twenty! None of them protected! 
None of them old in the ways of the world ! 

Poor girlies ! Those are the pitiful quali- 



'*NO ADMITTANCE" 133 

fications with which you are turned loose to 
make a living in that plague-spot of the 
world, Broadway! 

Singing and prancing through your even- 
ings in the theatre, seeing the "prosperity" 
of some of your fellow "girlies" and know- 
ing whence it comes, where do you go when, 
after the performance, you pass out through 
the dingy little door? Do you scurry home 
alone to your hall bedroom? Or do you go 
to meet "Prosperity"^— Prosperity in even- 
ing dress — awaiting you, out there beneath 
the shadows of the street lamp? 

Poor girlies! 

But there was one of you who gave the lie 
to that insinuating catch-line. Yes, one of 
you was married, and the whole world of 
Broadway found it out one morning when it 
read its papers. That "girlie" was the one 
whose husband waited for her, in the dark, 
outside the little door, chased her through 
the New York streets, and shot her. 



"OH, YOU BABYLON" 



IV 

"OH, YOU BABYLON!" 

"I can see that you are married, 
And you know I'm married, too, 
And nobody knows that you know me, 

And nobody knows that I know you . . ." 

HIPS, arms, and head a-swinging with 
her song, hands flipping up and down 
hke fins, the girl with the oakum hair moved 
before the tables in a lazy, undulating shuffle 
suggesting a mermaid swimming in tobacco 
smoke. Her mouth was open wide — a large, 
red-painted bull's-eye in the round white tar- 
get of her face — ^but the sounds emitted 
lacked the allurement of a Rhine maiden's 
song. They were, rather, a Rhine-wine 
maiden's nasal notes. 

The people at the tables hedging in the 
open space in which she gyrated to the rag- 

137 



138 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

time music of the little orchestra, observed 
her with varying degrees of interest. A 
tall, aristocratic woman in a black evening 
gown looked stiffly through her lorgnon, as 
who should say: "Let me hear and see, 
and get it over with." To three other 
women, sitting with their escorts at the next 
table, the cabaret was clearly an old story. 
They wore Broadway faces and Fifth Ave- 
nue toilettes — gowns too fine, faces not 
fine enough. Resting bare, creamy elbows 
on the dead-white cloth, they presented to 
the singers three pairs of eyes like those of 
lazy, purring Sphinxes, and to the specta- 
tors, ranged at remoter tables in the rear, 
three glorious white backs, each, as it were, 
endeavouring to outstrip the other in the 
acuteness of its "eternal triangle." Now 
and then one of them lifted to her lips a 
champagne glass or a cigarette, taking a 
light draught from the one or a deep draught 
from the other. 

"Her voice," remarked one of the escorts, 



"OH, YOU BABYLON!" 139 

"is slightly corked." Fondling a half-foot 
amber cigarette-holder, he cast sad eyes 
upon the singer. 

"Put on another record," rejoined an- 
other. 

Save for minor differences (such as the 
initials on their cigarettes and the names 
on their visiting cards) the three young 
men were as like as three young dandies 
in a shirt and collar advertising lithograph. 
They were fashionable, night-prowling New 
Yorkers, clean-cut as to hair and clothing, 
polished as to finger-nails. 

Having passed their table and sung a 
second verse, the girl was once more shrill- 
ing the chorus. She had stopped dancing, 
and was leaning with one hand on a table 
at which sat three old men, dapper and 
delighted. 



"I can see that you are married 



?9 



The three exchanged significant glances 
and giggled foolishly together, while people 



140 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

at the other tables sneered and snickered. 
There is little that is funny, much that is 
revolting, in the folly of a white-haired 
man. It chills the bloods-even hot, young 
blood^ — and causes youth to wonder, horri- 
fied: Will I ever come to be like that? 
But cabaret girls must make people laugh. 
Still singing her refrain, the girl leaned far- 
ther over the table, thrusting her pert, ill- 
shaped nose closer and closer to that of the 
vieillard facing her. In the mocking stare 
of her cold, glittering eyes there was some- 
thing of the reptile; in the blank, blinking 
look he gave her back, something of the 
reptile's prey — of the helpless toad, terrified 
yet charmed. Closer came the cruel eyes. 
A silly smile was frozen on his lips. 

". . . If you care to, we'll have luncheon, 
Every day, here, just the same; 
But swee-tart . . ." 

Her bare, whitened arm shot out ; her fin- 
gers tickled him beneath the chin, in a derisive 
caress which was like the strike of a snake: 



"OH, YOU BABYLON!" 141 






. if you talk in your sleep, 
Don't men-shun my name!" 

With the final word she turned abruptly 
and cast a crimson smile about the room. 
People applauded her and laughed, as they 
will at brazen youth. With a sort of start 
the old man she had baited came to life — • 
or to something as like life as there was 
left in him. He felt a feeble but insistent 
impulse to hold up his non-existent end of 
the non-existent joke; to "come back," as 
they say on Broadway. So he cackled, 
clapped his hands, and called upon the girl 
to sit down at his table. But she had done 
with him. Without so much as looking 
around, she moved away. 

A certain Broadway sentimentalist I wot 
of, could take, as a beginning, a scene some- 
thing like this, and make from it a pretty 
romance. I can see what he would do. He 
would roll the episode in the sugar of his 
imagination, and place upon its apex the 
candied fruit of final happiness. In his 



142 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

story the old man would not be a fool, but 
a fine old figure, a millionaire, with a house 
on Fifth Avenue and a heartache. (You 
see, he had a daughter once, who etc., etc. 
She would have been just the age of this 
girl had she but etc. etc.) 

As for the cabaret girl in the story, she 
would have a "strange air of refinement." 
It would puzzle you until it was disclosed 
that she came of "a fine old Southern fam- 
ily." Little do her poor old mother and 
lame sister, at home, know how she earns 
the money to support them! But the 
shrewd eye of the old millionaire (and, now 
that I think of it, my friend the sentimen- 
talist would make him a Colonel with a 
white goatee) would quickly fathom the fic- 
tional fact that this girl was "not like the 
rest." He would call her to his table and 
talk with her in "low, well-bred tones," 
while about them all was smoke and rev- 
elry. He would ask about her past. She 
would tell him her real name. 



"OH, YOU BABYLON!" 143 

Then, to his surprise, and hers and 

ours—? the truth would be revealed! 

The girl would be his niece— the daughter 
of his scapegrace brother, long since dead! 
Together they would rise from the table, the 
bent old man and the fair young girl. Out 
in the night, beyond the gilded portals of 
the cabaret, would be standing the colonel's 
"perfectly appointed brougham." A "trim 
footman" would open the door. The 
colonel would "hand the girl in" ahead of 
him. Then, as she "dropped back upon 
the soft cushions," symbolic of the luxu- 
rious future awaiting her as his adopted 
daughter, the colonel would turn to his 
footman and pronounce the single, signifi- 
cant word "Home!"--which would end the 

story. 

As he wrote that final word, I think my 
Broadway sentimentalist would drop a tear 
upon his manuscript. I am sure that he 
cries over his stories after a certain point, 
just as he cries over his high balls after a 



144 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

certain hour. And for my part I could al- 
most cry over his stories myself. 

Alas for romance! No such story was 
enacted. As the real cabaret girl, in all 
her panoply of unreality, left him, the real 
old man felt not at all paternal. He was 
thinking, on the contrary, that the young 
girl had a pretty body, and that he was not 
so old, after all, as to be unattractive to "the 
ladies." Hadn't she picked him out to sing 
to? He threw out his chest and patted 
down the whisps of white hair upon his bald 
spot. 

The cabaret girl's mind was countless 
centuries older than the rest of her. She 
knew that she had hypnotised him, as she had 
so many other old men, before. She always 
picked an old one for that sort of thing ; the 
young ones "guy" back, sometimes, which 
is inconvenient. "Now that he's out of his 
trance," she said to herself, "I mustn't notice 
the old silly. When they're like that they 
want to pinch my arm, put their clammy 




A Favourite 



"OH, YOU BABYLON!" 145 

hands on my shoulder, and make me dance 
with them." 

It was a manicure girl who first set me to 
wondering about cabarets. I had heard 
vague rumours that a wave of cabarets had 
broken on the Broadway coast, and had made 
a mental note of the fact, as one notes the 
abstract news that several million Chinese 
families are perishing from famine. Then 
there came an afternoon when I found my- 
self indulging in the polite folly of having 
my nails "done," and the stiU greater folly 
of listening to the blond person's prattle of 
food and fashion. 

"Well," she said, "I suppose you've been 
to that new restaurant at Broadway and 
Forty-eighth?" 

"No," I admitted, looking idly at the 
buffer flying back and forth. "It's another 
cabaret, isn't it?" 

"Oh, no," she replied. "A gentleman 
friend took me there the other night. 



146 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

There's an orchestra and singers — no dan- 
cing. 

"Does it take dancing, then," I asked, 
"to turn a restaurant into a cabaret?" 

"Sure," she answered. 

"What does the word cabaret mean?" I 
asked. 

The shoulders, beneath her peekaboo 
waist, went up in an indifferent shrug. 

"Search me," she said. "It's something 
new." 

Clearly she was more interested in eating 
than in etymology, in filling than philology. 

Presently she gave my hand that final tap 
which means "I've finished," and I placed 
in hers that final tip which is the answer, and 
departed. 

It was spring— spring on Fifth Avenue. 
Buds were shooting in the milliners' win- 
dows; a soft haze of exhaust gases from au- 
tomobiles filled the air and wafted like in- 
cense to the nostrils, while on every hand 



"OH, YOU BABYLON!" 147 

could be heard the soft low note of the motor 
honking to its mate. 

Waiting to cross the street, I met a stock- 
broker I know, and to him repeated my in- 
quiry concerning the word cabaret. 

"I have it," he replied, "straight from 
Steve, the head bartender at Hector's. The 
word cabaret is a compound — like a cock- 
tail, you understand— made of two pure old 
Broadway words: 'cab'— a means of getting 
there, and 'hooray'=-a noise made there." 
I thanked him. 

"Great time to buy stocks," he declared, 
a fiery glitter showing in his eye. 

When a broker attempts business with a 
writer it is a sign that things are very, very 
dull in Wall Street. 

"Good-bye," I said hurriedly, and turned 
into the nearest doorway. 

The place proved to be the Public Library. 
Being, as I just said, a writer, I had never 
been inside a library before. I was about 



148 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

to rush out, when the sight of a stewdious- 
looking man reminded me again of caba- 
rets. The very place! You can find out 
anything in a library. Within a quarter of 
an hour I had found the inquiry desk. 

"I wish to know about cabarets," I said 
to the young man behind the desk. 

"You have made an error," he replied, 
regarding me oddly, through his large, 
round glasses. "This is the Public Library. 
Broadway is two blocks west." 

I explained further. 

"Ah!" he said, "you'll find it in Larousse, 
on a shelf just inside the door of the next 
room." 

I set off at once. Within ten or fifteen 
minutes I had reached the next room. Find- 
ing Larousse, I turned the pages, with shim- 
mering finger-nails, until I came upon the 
word: 

CABARET: Tavern, bar, or little inn; house 
where one sells drinks in detail, or where one 
gives also to eat. 



"OH, YOU BABYLON!" 149 

I read on. Nothing about singing and 
dancing; nothing about evening dress. As 
for the "newness" of the cabaret, three 
hundred years ago a poor Parisian poet 
wrote an "Ode to all the Cabarets of Paris." 
The famous cabarets at that time were 
the Sucking Calf, the Valley of Misery, 
and the Pomme de Pin, or Pine-cone. The 
last-named, though long since torn down, 
is famous to this day as having been the re- 
sort of him whom Stevenson called "the sor- 
riest figure on the rolls of fame," the poet 
Fran9ois Villon. Rabelais, too, patron- 
ised the Pomme de Pin; "indeed (says 
Larousse) the place was the haunt of those 
poets and rhymsters who opened the seven- 
teenth century with the noise of their glasses 
and their songs." 

As time went by, many of the old caba- 
rets of Paris disappeared, while a few ele- 
vated themselves, by virtue of good cuisine 
and wines, to the rank of first-class restau- 
rants. Among the latter may be mentioned 



150 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

Voisin's and the Cafe Anglais, where mon- 
archs, visiting in Paris, dine to-day. 

In the Bohemian region of Montmartre 
the cabaret underwent another sort of evo- 
lution^— an evolution from which sprang 
the current Broadway idea that cabaret 
means entertainment. Here there came 
into being certain small establishments, half 
cheap cafe, half club, known as cabarets 
artistiqueSj where met those strange, dirty, 
clever, shock-headed, slouch-hatted eccen- 
trics who belong especially to Paris and 
stand, the world over, as the ultimate of 
the type Bohemian. Originally, these caba- 
rets arUstiques were not open to the pub- 
lic, but were held sacred to the Montmartre 
poets, minstrels, and ballad-mongers. But 
presently the echoes of their songs perco- 
lated through closed shutters to the streets 
and aroused a curiosity which ended in in- 
vasion. As sightseers came in, the flame of 
genuine Bohemianism went out, and the 




Head-waiter 
A Cababet 



**0H, YOU BABYLON!" 151 

cabaret artistique, becoming commercialised, 
presently expired. 

Not so, however, the entertainment idea. 
Certain small, peculiar theatres, existing in 
Montmartre to-day (the Boite au Fursy, 
the Grand Guignol, etc. ) , are outgrowths of 
the cabaret artistique, as are also the innu- 
merable cafes concerts and the all-night res- 
taurants in which paid singers and dancers 
perform between the tables. It is from these 
Parisian supper places that New York has 
taken its conception of the cabaret. But 
for all that, the word still holds in France 
its old primary significance of cheapness and 
inferiority: diner de cabaret, implying a bad 
dinner, and vm de cabaret, bad wine. 

When one speaks of Broadway, one does 
not think of the steamship offices in the 
canyon of lower Broadway; the wholesale 
shirt, cloak and suit, feather and umbrella 
district above City Hall Park; the old de- 



152 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

partment stores between Union and Madi- 
son Squares; but of that strange, sordid 
mile-and-a-half which is given over to 
amusement, and which— with its unimpor- 
tant buildings and its general cheap look, 
only partially redeemed by an occasional 
fine hotel — must be a bitter disappointment 
to those who, having heard George M. Co- 
han's patriotic songs about it, see the street 
for the first time. 

Yet it has interesting features : It is the 
hottest, tawdriest street on earth at mid- 
day in the summer; the coldest, crudest 
street at midnight in the winter; and if in- 
habitants of other planets, gazing at us 
through their telescopes, see brilliant flashes 
in the night and think that we are signal- 
ling to them, it is because commercial gen- 
tlemen with goods to sell are signalling, not 
upward to the heavens, but downward to 
the earth. For the rest, what does Broad- 
way offer us? Theatres named for other 
theatres in the European capitals ; European 



"OH, YOU BABYLON!" 153 

actors playing European plays in European 
clothing; restaurants called after famous 
Paris eating-places ; French cooking, French 
cooks, French waiters, and French wines. 

So far as our restaurants are concerned, 
the French invasion is not to be deplored. 
No one who is civilised, or even semi-civilised, 
will mourn the loss of the * 'strictly Amer- 
ican" restaurant which flourished in such 
numbers upon Broadway until a decade or 
so since. Gone are its checker-board mar- 
ble floors, its heavy, plush-upholstered chairs, 
its armoured plates and side-dishes, its Irish 
waiters (seasoning the soup with their 
thumbs), its unimaginative, uninviting bills 
of fare, set in type once for all, when the 
establishment first opened, and never 
changed save when a dish or two was added 
in peculiar purple handwHting. Why, I 
wonder, were all those ancient bills of fare 
written in purple and in the same illegible 
hand? It is one of the unsolved problems 
of our unlovely gastronomic past. Suffice 



154 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

it that the eating-house of other days has 
gone to an unhonoured grave in its own 
greasy gravy. 

Even in New York the cabaret is not so 
new as many manicures and taxi-drivers 
suppose. Six or eight years since, many 
well-known artists frequented the Cabaret 
Francis in Tliirty-fifth Street. Almost as 
long ago there was a "cabaret show" at the 
gay old Cafe Boulevard (which has a good 
one still) in Second Avenue. "Cap" 
Churchill, proprietor of the Broadway res- 
taurant which bears his name, gives the caba- 
ret an even longer local lineage, harking 
back to Billy McGlory's and other dives 
that antedate the days of Lexow. When 
I spoke to him upon the subject, the "Cap" 
(though he runs one now) set his face sternly 
against cabarets. At that time he enter- 
tained his patrons with a concert. 

"They'll 'can' this cabaret stuff," he re- 
marked. "It's just * joint' stuff." 




My Rosary 



My Rosary!" 



"OH, YOU BABYLON!" 155 

There is truth in the diagnosis. The 
"joints" may fairly claim a sort of cousin- 
ship with this new-come French jade: the 
sort of cousinship there is between the woman 
of the streets and the favourite of a king. 
Things change. It takes time to "educate" 
the public. Moe would not go to the 
"joints," so the "joints" are brought to 
Moe. Besides, he'll tell you, cabarets are 
altogether different. They cost more. The 
women are "dolled up" and the walls are 
gilt. The "joints," upon the other hand, 
were dim and dismal. You went to them 
by narrow stairs that seemed to lead to 
Hades. Tough waiters brought bad whis- 
key, and bawled songs, like "The Rosary," 
in equally bad whiskey voices, while a "pro- 
fessor" banged on a piano which was steeped 
in beer and stuiFed with cigarette butts. 

Ah, gentle reader ! it is hard to realise that 
Music, heavenly maid, is still young in the 
big Broadway restaurants ! Her life, though 



156 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

brief, has been so full! But a decade since, 
combined with potted palms, she could im- 
part to any Broadway cafe a rakish and 
clandestine flavour! Consider her to-day. 
We hear her screaming everywhere. We 
masticate our morning egg to rag-time, 
lunch and dine to the strains of the pseudo- 
passionate waltz, and, after the theatre 
(where, doubtless, we ran into something 
called a "cabaret show") sup like Oriental 
potentates, amid the minstrelsy and dancing 
of the neurotic, exotic, tommy-rotic cabaret. 

Tenderloin etiquette gives the Forty-sec- 
ond- Street-French pronunciation to the 
name of Louis Martin, calling it "Looey 
M^aY'tan/" and thus separating in one's mind 
the Martin family of Broadway, which feeds 
one on food, and the Martin family of Fifth 
Avenue which, represented by Frederick 
Townsend Martin, feeds one on beautiful 
thoughts. 

Entering the glittering establishment of 



t ^ 




t\\(J'^^l>AI.-^ 



We Sup, Like Oriental 
Potentates, Amid the 
minstkelsy and dancing 
OF THE Neurotic, Exotic 
Tommy-rotic Cabaret 



"OH, YOU BABYLON!" 157 

Louis Martin, you see (as you look over the 
heads of the "hat-snatchers" who wrest your 
outer garments from you) the ground- 
floor restaurant in all the splendour of its 
barbaric black and blue and gold. An or- 
chestra is playing; people are supping; a 
gay scene you'd have called it before the 
invention of the cabaret. But now! . . . 
Poor innocents! Sunday-school picknick- 
ers! . . . With a hollow, mocking laugh, 
you move toward the lift. To the head 
waiter, who intercepts you, you whisper your 
name. A glance at his list and he stands 
aside. You step into the car. The door 
slides shut behind you. You have disap- 
peared, mysteriously, like the man in the 
trick cabinet; your body, and along with it 
whatever soul you may have, is being wafted 
upward, like the spirit of a good Moham- 
medan, to a paradise where houris dance. 

There is an artificial air of secrecy and 
sin about it all. You have (unless you are 



158 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

too jaded to have feelings any more) the de- 
lightful sensation of doing something you 
ought not to do, back of which is the com- 
fortable consciousness that the sin is only 
seeming. Still, the fact that you get in 
proves that you have a clean shirt and a 
solvent appearance; that, in the eyes of a 
head waiter, careful as a bank cashier, you 
look like the very devil of a fellow, take 
you buy and large. 

The room upon which the elevator dis- 
gorges you, carries out the fancy of a Mo- 
hammedan paradise. It is "as Oriental as 
a rug" or as the harem scene from Sumurun. 
Three walls are of gold; the fourth is faced 
with mirrors, giving an illusory effect of 
double space and double crowd. Nor are 
the people reflected only in the glasses. 
Despite variety of colour in costume and 
complexion, they are as like as a line of taxi- 
cabs. 

Now and then you read in the Sunday 
supplement of a race of head-hunters or 



"OH, YOU BABYLON!" 159 

pygmies, discovered in their forest fast- 
nesses by some intrepid explorer who likes 
to print "F. R. G. S." after his name. The 
Artist and I, however, don't go in for that 
sort of exploring. It disarranges the cloth- 
ing and — as the young Briton remarked of 
the theatre — ^"cuts into one's evenings so." 
Instead of discovering new races in darkest 
Africa, therefore, we gum-shoe after them 
in lightest New York, after dark. Hence 
this cabaretting. 

We call our new-found race the Hectics. 
Manhattan is their habitat. They first 
made their appearance in considerable num- 
bers at about the time the appendicitis op- 
eration became general (though we at- 
tach no special significance to the fact). 
Their numbers are rapidly increasing, as 
they breed in those alcoholically damp 
places which are found in such abundance 
in New York. In colouring, both males and 
females run to shades of red; the males get- 
ting theirs through the application of alcohol 



160 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

within and hot barber-shop towels without; 
the females theirs from paint. 

They do not paint in stripes, but rather 
in spots, after the manner of the ancient 
sisterhood of Cyprians. In the matter of 
trappings they also emulate the courtesan; 
they are not so much women wearing 
clothes, as clothes containing women. In 
their light, tight walking-skirts or their al- 
luring evening gowns, their clothing cries 
so loud of sex that one may be forgiven if 
one wonders whether Robert W. Chambers 
hasn't dropped his pen and gone to cutting 
paper dress-patterns. 

You may see them on Fifth Avenue by 
day, or by night in the famous feeding- 
places where, in combination with the 
Broadway "regulars" and the visiting "vol- 
unteers," the Hectics keep the golden 
ball a-rolling. For the rest, their tribal 
game is bridge and their tribal dance the 
turkey-trot — executed to the tune of their 
national hymn, which Franklin P. Adams 







"Hectics" 



"OH, YOU BABYLON!" 161 

has super-named "Everybody's Overdoing 
It." The female Hectic may readily be rec- 
ognised by a sort of beauty that she has — 
the carnal beauty of loose, red hps, of fe- 
verish eyes, shining from the shadows of her 
low-piled hair, like those of some wild beast, 
gazing from a cave, at night. The male 
travels with her. He has a golden cigarette 
case, she a gold mesh-bag; receptacles in 
which, it is believed, they carry their ideals. 
As you pass to your little table in Louis 
Martin's cabaret, your dress coat brushes 
several sorts of scented talcum from the 
backs of several fillies of the Tenderloin. 
You seat yourself, and after deciding be- 
tween champagne and high-balls (at forty 
cents apiece) begin to look about. Perhaps 
you see at other tables, men you know. 
Perhaps the women with them are their 
wives—some wives do look like that, nowa- 
days, remember. But let us not pursue this 
line of inquiry too far. Let us rather heed 
the admonition of the Etiquette Department 



162 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

of the Morning Telegraph — the Ladies' 
Home Journal of the Tenderloin — which 
warns us that it is not good form (deahng 
in round figures) to notice with whom our 
friends may happen to be, in cabarets. 

The room is packed with little tables, 
valuable according to their proximity to 
the open space left at the centre for the 
performers; the space in which we have al- 
ready seen the nasal singer baiting an old 
man. 

Now comes a little Spanish girl with jet- 
black hair and eyes, and castanets in her 
white hands. She is young — youth is at a 
premium in cabarets— and she dances well, 
revolving like a top in her spangled, springy 
skirt, now bending backward like a willow 
in the wind, now stamping her small heels 
and posturing as proudly as a matador. 
Fela Hidalgo, she is called. She has danced 
earlier this evening in a Broadway theatre. 
And in her tireless dancing is another story 
for the sentimental fictionist. 




She Is Young— Youth Is at 
A Premium in Cabarets 



"OH, YOU BABYLON!" 163 

Having made some reputation as dancers 
at the Cirque de Paris in Madrid, Fela and 
her brother came last year to New York, 
and soon found an engagement at Louis 
Martin's. They had been here but a short 
time, however, when the brother developed 
tuberculosis. Since then, Fela has been 
dancing for both. Her brother is in the 
country near Marseilles. They think that 
he is getting better. And there you have 
another plot. Ohe! I wish I had the magic 
wand of Merlin (or, failing that, the magic 
"wad" of Mr. Carnegie) with which to touch 
Hidalgo's little heels; for if I had, each 
stamping of them would mint golden coins 
upon the carpet. 

Cabaret nights are long. Other dancers, 
other singers come; fillers-in, just good 
enough to please an easily contented audi- 
ence, which, with stomach and palate purr- 
ing pleasantly, await Maurice.* 

Maurice (the French pronunciation, 

* Maurice has lately moved up town to Reisenweber's. 



164 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

please!) is the king-pin of the cabaret, high 
priest of the decadent dance. He came 
from Paris, turkey-trotting on the crest of 
this all-engulfing wave of cabarets, was 
washed up Broadway, and has since been 
whirling madly in Louis Martin's mael- 
strom. Having introduced the danse des 
Apaches at the Cafe de Paris, Maurice ar- 
rived here as an international figure. He 
was more interviewed than an ambassador. 
There was a rumour that, in the violence of 
a dance, he had once (and once is enough) 
broken his woman partner's neck. Pres- 
ently one heard that certain ladies, whose 
names are known to every clerk who 
reads the society columns, had actually put 
down their Pomeranians and cigarettes, 
taken up their skirts, and trod a measure 
with Maurice. 

Societies opposed to what one might call 
the "Mauricent" school of dancing, got him 
to give exhibitions by way of showing them 
how shocked they ought to be. And the 



"OH, YOU BABYLON!" 165 

word went forth that of all tangos and all 
turkey-trots, of all sliding, gliding, twisting, 
swirling, wreathing, writhing, man-and-girl- 
ing dances, these were most apt to appal the 
prude and please the prurient. 

Mr. Charles Frohman, in a recent inter- 
view, was quoted as saying something to 
the effect that the two important theatrical 
discoveries of the past season were Maurice 
and Gaby Deslys — both from France, and 
both, in a manner of speaking, dancers. 
Gaby didn't dance in cabarets; indeed, she 
didn't dance much anywhere, though any 
one could see she did her best. For the 
rest, the lady (you pronounce it Gah-bee 
Day-leece, by the way) had strings of 
things that looked like pearls, a rather pretty 
figure, a certain chic, and the name of hav- 
ing been the "lady friend" (as they say 
on Broadway) of a certain little European 
king who lately lost his job. Personally, I 
think the story about Gaby and her little 
king is press-agent work, and much exag- 



166 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

gerated. I might even call it false, but for 
the fear that Gaby, being a French artiste 
and jealous of her reputation, might sue the 
publisher and me for damages. 

As for Maurice, he is a graceful, well- 
built young man, debonair and cocksure in 
his beautifully fitting evening dress. Mis- 
chief dances in his fringed blue eye, and 
something more than mischief hangs about 
the corners of his cruel, complacent, full- 
lipped mouth. The little orchestra strikes 
up a waltz. Jaded Hectics indicate expect- 
ancy by sitting up and filling glasses. 
Their shoulders fall into the rhythm, work- 
ing up and down like the walking-beams of 
old side-wheelers. Several hundred more 
or less astigmatic eyes focus, as best they 
can, upon the end of the room at which 
performers first appear. Maurice steps 
forward with his partner=--a girl young and 
blonde and dainty enough to lead a Senior 
"Prom." 

At first they waltz for all the world like 



"OH, YOU BABYLON!" 167 

a pair of exceptionally good dancers at a 
ball. The tempo becomes more rapid. 
Suddenly the man flings the girl away from 
him violently, as a boy throws a top. Hold- 
ing to his hand, she spins until their two 
arms are outstretched. Then, with a jerk, 
he draws her back again, revolving, to his 
arms. They have not missed, in step or 
gesture, the fraction of a beat in the well- 
marked measure. The time changes. 
Dancing in circles, the girl leans back upon 
his hand, as if it were a sort of couch. Then, 
facing one another, and dropping into still 
another step, they move sidewise in a straight 
line, down the room. Her face is turned 
upward; her gaze is buried in his eyes. It 
is a luminous gaze. She clings to him, her 
stride following his as naturally and swiftly 
as spoke follows spoke in a fast-flying wheel. 
More and more rapidly they dance. The 
eye of the onlooker becomes bewildered. It 
seems to see them stepping through each 
other, each body giving way before the other 



168 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

as if its substance were no more real than 
those light, transparent gauzes which the 
ancients called "woven air." So they mingle 
and blend together — a black cloud and a 
moonbeam, tearing cyclonically through 
space in which the planets rock. 

Then, of a sudden, the terpsichorean 
dream is shattered. The moonbeam de- 
taches herself and turns to girl, again. 
With a leap, she alights astride her part- 
ner's hips and, fastened to his waist with 
the hooks of her bent knees, swings outward 
and away from his whirling body like a 
floating sash. It is the climax of the dance ; 
not so ungraceful as it sounds, perhaps, 
and more astonishing. Speed relieves much 
of its vulgarity, leaving it bizarre — the more 
bizarre because the dancers are in evening 
dress, instead of being habited as acrobats. 
It is incongruity, as much as grace, which 
makes Maurice's dances so effective. 

A great many people will tell you that 
these dances are quite new; a great many 










o > 



« 5 (^ 
n 

> 
r 



H 

33 
so 
o 
G 
o 
X 



n 

r 
o 

Hi 

w 

> 

2 > 

o a 



"OH, YOU BABYLON 1" 169 

others (remembering that Wallace Irwin 
mentioned the "bunny-hug" ten years ago 
in his "Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum") will 
say they came from San Francisco. The 
fact is, however, that all these turkey-trots, 
tangos, bunny-hugs, grizzly-bears, Texas- 
tommies, etc., are the illegitimate descend- 
ants of the old valse clialoupe, which has been 
danced for the past thirty years, and prob- 
ably much longer, in the dives around Les 
Halles in Paris, and which, I believe, still 
forms a part of the quadrilles at the Bal 
Bullier. The valse chaloupe was doubtless 
taken to San Francisco by members of that 
city's French colony, and thus came to be 
adopted by the "Barbary Coast." 

Almost every cabaret in New York has 
its Maurice. Shanley's new place, in Lob- 
ster Square — largest of Broadway cabarets 
— has had Jack Clifford and Irene Weston. 
Clifford used to be head waiter in a "joint" 
called Sweeney's; Irene, an habituee. 



170 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

Sweeney's "joint" was so often thrown out 
by the police, that it finally was permanently 
dislocated, so to speak. And the wonder 
is that Irene's joints aren't dislocated too 
e^so violent is the dance she does with Clif- 
ford. Like other premier cabaret perform- 
ers, they have "doubled" in a Broadway 
theatre, and even in Shanley's they dance 
upon a stage, and with a spot-light on them 
— for Shanley's cabaret is almost like a mu- 
sic-hall. 

The general run of singers and dancers 
in the cabarets, along Broadway, are much 
the same in one place as another. When I 
was last at Maxim's the piece de resistance 
was the Apache dance, done extremely well 
by a couple dressed as a Paris tough and 
toughess. This dance, though sordid, has, 
to my mind, a redeeming histrionic quality 
which lifts it above dances that depend on 
acrobatics, or on sex, for their appeal. The 
performers must be actors quite as much as 
dancers, for the Apache dance has the rare 




The •'Apache" Dance Has 
THE Rare Distinction of 
Possessing Plot 



I 



"OH, YOU BABYLON!" 171 

distinction of possessing plot. There is no 
allure about it — not even the charm of phy- 
sical beauty set off by flashing silks — noth- 
ing which makes vice seem anything but 
horrible. Its action is direct and brutal ; its 
music peculiarly sinister; and when you 
have seen it to the end, you turn away with 
a shudder, for you have witnessed a terp- 
sichorean interpretation of the life of a 
"white slave." 

One of the most peculiar and novel de- 
velopments along the cabaret line was in- 
augurated by the brothers Bustanoby when 
they ran the Cafe des Beaux Arts. This 
was the opening of a completely equipped 
turkey-trotting department in a ballroom 
at the rear of the main restaurant. It was 
popular, and had a peculiar patronage, half 
Broadway, half Fifth Avenue. Dancing 
lasted late into the mornings. But some- 
thing went wrong at the Beaux Arts, and 
the two brothers who had operated there 
got out, leaving the place to a third mem- 



172 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

ber of the family who, I take it, was more 
circumspect, for he abolished turkey-trot- 
ting, to the general sorrow of the Tender- 
loin elite. 

The turkey-trotting brothers were, how- 
ever, not to be circumvented. They opened 
another restaurant — Bustanoby's — but a 
few blocks distant, where dancing is per- 
mitted, nay, abetted. George Rector's new 
establishment, which is just above Fifty- 
ninth Street, on the exact line that separates 
the up-town and the down-town Tender- 
loins, also installed an admirable turkey- 
trotting plant, and Murray's Roman Gar- 
den in Forty-second Street followed suit. 
In the latter two establishments one may 
sup on the ground floor in unblissful un- 
consciousness of the rag-time, the swaying 
shoulders, and the shuffling feet two floors 
above. There is a long ballroom at George 
Rector's, at one end of which are little tables 
where a "Supper Tabarin" is served. And 



"OH, YOU BABYLON!" 173 

of course those who come to trot remain to 
pay. 

In mild weather Murray's supper-tables 
are spread upon a comfortable roof-garden, 
where turkey-trotters may combine the proc- 
ess of cooling off with that of putting prov- 
ender where it belongs. And it is wonderful 
indeed to see how much a single little chorus 
girl can eat and drink, when food and liquor 
are laid in in layers, between the dances. 

I feel apologetic. I have only scratched 
the surface of the cabarets — ^but that may be 
because the cabarets have naught save sur- 
faces to scratch. From Little Hungary in 
Houston Street, to Pabst's vast armory- 
like restaurant in One-Hundred-and- 
Twenty-fifth, you will find them every- 
where: rag-time, turkey-trotting spots upon 
the city map; gay cabarets, jay cabarets; 
cabarets with stages and spot-lights, cabarets 
without; cabarets on ground floors, in cellars. 



174 WELCOME TO OUR CITY 

and on roofs; cabarets where "folks act 
genTmumly," cabarets where the wild 
time grows. 

Nor must you fancy you have reached 
the northern cabaret belt when you get to 
Pabst's. Far from it! Ask those Harlem- 
ites — those hardy men, with the solemn 
faces of folk who live forever in cold, north- 
ern places-^and they will point their fingers 
toward the pack-ice of the Harlem River, 
and tell you there are cabarets "away up 
there." It is the Bronx they mean — that 
dark and fearsome region 'neath the North- 
ern lights, whence so few travellers have re- 
turned. At the mention of the Bronx your 
taxi-driver's eye rolls horribly. So does his 
taximeter. Mutiny is in the air. Some 
one mentions a cabaret at Two Hundred 
and Thirteenth Street. Shivering, you pic- 
ture what the place must be: a chill igloo, 
where caborigines eat blubber and dance the 
"polar-bear" and "penguin," throughout a 
night which lasts six months! 



"OH, YOU BABYLON!" 175 

No; you don't mind ordinary sitting up, 
but that's too much! Hastily building a 
cairn at the roadside, you cache your in- 
struments and pemmican, and start for 
home. Farther, farther south you fly. The 
climate becomes milder. You open the 
window of the taxi-cab. From the doors of 
countless cafes, which you pass, there comes 
a sound of rag-time. Shrill voices rend the 
air! . . . Can this be death? No, Kid, this 
is Life! You can't escape it! You can't 
escape the cabaret ! As you drive up to the 
apartment house which you call home, you 
discover that the janitor has started up a 
basement cabaret while you've been gone. 
The negro elevator boy does cabaret stunts 
as he carries you up-stairs. Rushing into 
your flat, you find your wife and children 
cabareeling round the little parlour ! Help ! 
Help ! Telephone the doctor ! Call the am- 
bulance! The town is cabaridden! Caba- 
rotten! And you, poor devil, you're stark, 
staring cabarazy! 



a 31 \9^3 



